It is my pleasure to bring a wonderful documentary to the attention of all work.life supporters. Who Does She Think She Is? is directed by Pamela Tanner Boll, the executive producer of the Academy Award winning film "Born into Brothels." I wrote a blog about it for the Huffington Post a while back (as well as on this blog). Here is a snippet:

Who Does She Think She Is? takes an in-depth look at what it really means to be an artist and a mother. Big deal, right? Wrong. The stigma against mothers that prevails throughout the working world ("they'll take time off," "they'll always have other priorities ...") seems exceptionally strong in the art world, which is notoriously difficult to penetrate to begin with. Yet, the greatest challenge that these women face is much closer to home. It is the expectation that taking care of house and home, and the kids inhabiting that home, are primarily a woman's responsibilities.

(Read the rest of the blog, which discusses the film in relation to a New York Times article by Lisa Belkin about equal parenting, here.)

In short, Who Does She Think She Is? exposes what is at the heart of the conflict that so many women face of how to balance careers and creative pursuits with their role as mothers. The portraits are sensitively drawn, the stories compelling. The topic is, above all, incredibly important.

Since the film's release, the production team has produced some follow-up videos on the artists who were featured in the film which can be found on the film's website. The film is now available to buy on DVD by going to store.emergingpictures.com. In fact, I'm so excited about the film that if you decide to buy it, I'll let you in on a little secret: type the promotional code "Lattice" and you'll get a 10% disount. Pretty sweet deal.

The minds behind the film are even hosting a National Who Does She Think She Is? Day on Nov 8.  On that day, they will be showing the film in theaters around the country all at the same time (more info on their website). The main event will be held at Symphony Space in NYC, so if you're around you can see it on the big screen there. If you buy a DVD and decide to watch it with friends, there will also be an opportunity to call in and discuss the film.

Happy viewing!

- Astri

The Lattice Group has started writing for the website True/Slant . This week, we published a two-part interview series with Jeremy Adam Smith, father, writer and blogger (Daddy Dialectic ) about the American shift toward shared parenting. We decided to re-publish it here.

PART I

When I was ten months old, my father took two months off his job in the Foreign Service to stay home with me and my older sister, Agnes. He had already taken three months leave when Agnes, his first child, was born. He was taking advantage of the paid paternity leave that was offered to him as a Swedish citizen. It was the 1980’s, and paternity leave was a relative novelty. So novel that my career diplomat dad’s experience garnered enough interest for a book, “A Dad’s Diary,” which chronicles his time at home with Agnes.

In “The Daddy Shift, How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared Parenting are Transforming the American Family,” which came out on Father’s Day from Beacon Press, Jeremy Adam Smith writes about his own experience staying home with his son Liko, but he goes beyond the awed, often naïve, wonder that characterizes my dad’s book, and instead offers genuine, practical insights into the current parenting landscape in America. Smith has identified a change in how contemporary families are structured. He defines the “Daddy Shift” of his title as follows: “the gradual movement away from a definition of fatherhood as pure breadwinning to one that encompasses capacities for both breadwinning and caregiving.” If you believe Smith, and he makes a very believable case, the next generation of American dads have significantly different values, and different practices, from their own Baby Boom fathers.

Based on my own research into the desires and expectations of Generation Y when it comes to work and family, I would venture to say that Smith is right. Most of the  Gen Y men I have spoken to expressed an earnest desire to be there for the children in a hands-on way, a way that often differed from the way their own fathers were there for them. Most said they would like to take paternity leave to stay home with their young children for a period of time. The problem that these Gen Y parents-to-be will face, which Smith ruefully points out, is that the government and the business world have not caught up to the changing views of the people that fuel them. “Men are evolving, but society, business, and government still drag their collective feet.”

For starters, new American fathers don’t even have the option that my Swedish father had already back in the 1980’s. The United States is the only industrial nation in the world that doesn’t guarantee paid parental leave of any sort— we’re in the company of Papa New Guinea, Liberia and Swaziland. Smith writes,

“One 2000 survey of mothers and fathers found that 78 percent of new parents did not take leave because they didn’t feel able to afford the pay cut that usually comes with it. Forty-three percent said leave would hurt their prospects for promotion; 32 percent claimed they’d lose their job if they took leave; 21 percent said their employer denied their request.”

Which leads me to the most salient point Smith makes (among a sea of salient points): young men lack role models for ways of fathering that better match the care giving desires that they increasingly possess. Smith wants to remedy this. In his charming, highly readable, broadly accessible voice, Smith not only offers up his own experiences as an example, but also chronicles the choices of several other so-called “reverse-traditional” families (where the father stays home while the mother works). His goal is an admirable one: “I have tried to write the book that I wish someone had given me before I became a father. I have tried to write a book that can help thoughtful new parents see the social context in which they make their decision, in hopes that they can make each one more confidently.”

My colleague Liz Kofman and I had the opportunity to pick Smith’s brain about fatherhood in our new brave century. Here is what he said:

What are the benefits of shared parenting?

The benefits are different for women and men and children. Women get a chance to do things besides change diapers. Men learn how to be whole human beings. Children, the young ones, learn that they can survive without mommy; they gain independence, and they discover how much dad loves them.

What are the drawbacks of shared parenting?

That varies from couple to couple, I’d say. But mainly, for most, the drawbacks are inner conflict and confusion. Men and women are living their lives according to scripts that are hundreds, maybe thousands, of years old, scripts that are not terribly relevant to our twenty-first-century reality. Women worry that they are being bad mothers when they go off to work; dads worry that they are bad fathers when they don’t. Some moms feel responsible–sometimes in overcompensating, overbearing ways–for kids and housework, and blame caregiving dads when something seems to go wrong at home.

But I discovered, in examining my own experience and in interviewing parents around the country, that these drawbacks can be overcome. The happiest couples I interviewed were the ones who prize time with kids and are able to articulate what they are gaining through a reverse-traditional arrangement. They value work and care equally, and are grateful to each other for the contributions each makes to the household, and so they value each other.

What needs to change in our society for shared parenting to really take hold?

So much. We have very far to go. For dads, the most important thing we can do right now is tell stories; it’s very powerful for men to tell and hear stories about the first time they held or fed their children. That helps create a culture of care and a new image of the good father. For decades, fathers have been told they’re worthless, or violent, or absent. It’s time to provide the positive examples, to reflect what’s best in fatherhood back to men and boys.

What’s interesting about the United States is that the culture is changing in advance of public and workplace policies. Sweden, by contrast, has tried to legislate shared parenting into existence, with some success. But in America, employers and government have fought shared parenting tooth and nail. For example, only a tenth of fathers have access to paternity leave. Only California guarantees paid leave to parents, and it’s pretty paltry. Caregiving activities, such as the ability to take a sick child to the doctor, are not protected as well as they should be.

And yet American parents have been very resilient and creative, and have forged new roles for themselves. Fatherhood has evolved beyond breadwinning, to encompass a capacity for caregiving. That revolution has just started, but the evidence suggests that it will continue. Now public policy needs to catch up. We need to recognize that moms and dads alike have responsibilities at home as well as at work. That recognition will make America a better, more humane place.

We would really like to know what advice you have for people in their 20s, just starting out in the working world, many of us without families yet.

When I was in my 20s, I assumed, like almost everyone I knew, that I would never become a parent. But then in my 30s, I became a parent–which was statistically very likely. Most people ultimately become parents. I would advise twentysomethings, girls and guys alike, to start thinking now about what role you most want to play if you start a family–and articulate that, when the time comes. Because if what you say to your spouse or partner is just some line of bullshit, then it will later bite you in the ass. You can’t fake parenthood. If you want to focus on your career, say that. If you want to take time with the kids, say that. If you don’t want to support your spouse– if a dual-income family is what you envision—say that. Don’t tell your loved one what you think he or she wants to hear. Tell the truth.

Jeremy Adam Smith, I salute thee! After interviewing over one hundred Gen Y:ers, I’ve witnessed enough confusion, contradiction and frustration to know that a book like this, and a  role model like Smith, is just what men of my generation are clamoring for. The question is: will they read it? I’m afraid the answer is no. Young people shy away from anything that seems suspiciously policy-preachy, especially if it has to do with gender roles. Though “The Daddy Shift” is emphatically not that, I fear the title may be a deterrent to the average reader who is, incidentally, the very person who needs the book the most.

- Astri

PART II 

On Monday, I posted the first part of a two part interview series with author and father Jeremy Adam Smith, whose book “The Daddy Shift, How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared Parenting are Transforming the American Family,” came out on Father’s Day from Beacon Press. The name of my game is Generation Y, and when my colleague Liz and I spoke with Smith, our real interest lay in finding out how his wisdom regarding men and women’s roles and parenting pertained to our target group. A lot, actually.

After reading the interview with Smith, my boyfriend, a prime example of an urban American Gen Y:er, sat with his head in his hands repeating, “I don’t know what I want.” He had begun to question his ideals and expectations, wondering if his stint with me— a socially progressive Swede— had only served to alter his mindset for the short term. Did he really want the dual-earner/dual-caregiver model we’d always talked about, or was he actually, honestly, invested in the role he’d been raised with: a manhood defined primarily by breadwinning?

My boyfriend is the perfect reader for Smith’s book. He is a member of the youngest generation of professionals and to-be-fathers who have a lot of role-examining to do. He, and men like him, may need help asking the right questions. While there are plenty of advocacy groups fighting the fight for mothers (such as momsrising.org ), “The same cannot be said of fathers,” Smith writes. “Too often, we as a group have docilely accepted the ‘ideal worker’ model, which pretends our families don’t exist.”

Basically, what Smith highlights is reverse discrimination. The gender equity debate tends to revolve around “women’s issues.” But, as Smith points out, our patriarchal system can also put men at a serious disadvantage. My own dad always tells me he thinks women have it easier these days because we have more choices. As a woman, I can choose to have a career, but I can also find respect if I choose to take a slower work path and dedicate myself to my children. Men are not as lucky. Most feel they have to have careers in order to be respected. This was truer of my dad’s generation, but it still resonates with my own.

Here’s more of what Jeremy Adam Smith had to say:

What is your take on the biology argument—that women are somehow biologically pre-ordained to be closer to their children and therefore are the rightful primary caregivers?

Well, women do carry burdens that men do not--they gestate and give birth to children, and can breastfeed. That's why paid maternity leave and caregiver protections are so hugely necessary, for the health of both mother and child.

But for many couples, those first months of parenthood set a pattern that lasts for the rest of their lives. It doesn't have to be that way. Study after study, plus decades of experience, tell us that dads are fully capable to taking over care of young children, and everyone--moms, dads, kids-- will benefit. Empathy is a skill that can be developed, not a fixed trait, not something unique to women. That's true of all of the emotions and behaviors we need to take care of kids.

One breadwinning mom I interviewed, Gina Heise in Kansas City, argued that a mother's special biological attachment to her children is actually a good argument on behalf of stay-at-home fatherhood. It creates a bond between dads and kids that might not exist otherwise, and deepens the father's attachment to the family as a whole. The dad might not know what he's doing at first, but that's also true for many mothers. We have to respect each other's learning curves.

Besides your work, it is rare that we’ve come across men advocating for shared parenting. Why do you think this is? To what degree is this changing?

Historically, men have seen breadwinning as the most important part of parenting. When my grandfather went to work at a quarry every day, he saw himself as being a good father. And, by the standards of his time, he was a very dedicated father. So when working-class men organized themselves into unions and fought for pay, respect, and benefits, they were fighting for their families. It was all about a paycheck, not care. And robbing a man of his paycheck could destroy him, and the family. That dynamic has changed.

Eighty percent of mothers work and a third of wives make more money than their husbands. During the past twenty years, and especially during the past ten, rates of male caregiving have risen and we've seen more and more men ask for things like paternity leave.

However, we shouldn't expect that men will talk about these issues using the same language that women have; when we do, we miss the ways that men's values have shifted. Women talk about equality, and they have the feminist movement to back them up. As far as I'm concerned, that's right on. But for me and for many men, shared parenting is mainly about living a meaningful life. It's about love. That may sound dippy compared to a powerful feminist slogan like equal pay for equal work, but what are we talking about when we talk about shared parenting? We're talking about love and care. It should be seen as something wonderful, not as drudgery--though taking care of a kid every day is indeed very hard work. It was right for the feminist movement to push men to take on more housework and childcare, but we've reached a point where men have started to pull each other in, mostly just by example. There's still push, but also pull. That's a very powerfulcombination.

Given the way the American system works, some people fear that practicing shared parenting (where presumably both parents have to make some sacrifices in terms of career, or at least cannot work 80+ hour weeks), means that the couple has to accept that they will likely not become very, very successful monetarily. In other words, can you be a jet-setting i-banker and still practice shared parenting? Or are some career paths out of the question?

In my opinion, it's not possible to have a super-high-powered career and still be an involved parent. I'm sure President Obama, to name one example, is not there for his daughters as often as he and they would like him to be. Does that mean that Obama should have remained a constitutional law professor, and never pursued politics? In terms of my own small life, writing "The Daddy Shift" took time away from my son, but does that mean I shouldn't have written it? Each person, each family, has to answer these questions for themselves. You have to know what you want, and know what you want will change over time. Maybe in eight years Barack Obama will feel called to become a stay-at-home dad!

The problem, as I see it, is not people making use of their talents and pursuing careers--or, conversely, choosing to stay home with children, which feminists like Linda Hirshman say is a problem. I think the problem is when people do what they do out of fear. They stay at their job and chase money and accomplishment because they're afraid to stop, or, in some cases, because they're afraid that they're letting down the feminist movement. Or they retreat to the home because they're afraid of the world or of not being womanly enough. The challenge, for every individual human being, is to be courageous, to be who you're are going to be. And I think children benefit when they see that example.

I hold Smith in the greatest esteem. But I do have a bone to pick with his terminology. Smith calls himself a stay-at-home-dad, but he was only home full time with his son, Liko, for a year, after his wife had, in turn, been home for a year. In my mind, that is not stay-at-home parenthood. That is parental leave. Granted, I’m from Sweden, a country that offers eighteen months of paid parental leave. To me, stay-at-home parenthood would have to entail several years to a lifetime out of the paid workforce.

My issue is with the labeling. The interviews that I’ve done with Gen Y:ers have shown that young men and women shy away from labels like stay-at-home-mom or stay-at-home-dad. In their long-term plans, they mention wanting to take some time off (several months to a year or so) when they have children, but they would never want to call themselves a stay-at-home parent. They want to continue to identify themselves as professionals, throughout their time off. That is, I think, an important distinction. And it points to a crucial issue, which Smith also wrestles with. The Unites States offers fewer provisions to help working families than any other industrial nation in the world. Because there is no federally mandated paid parental leave in America, as little as one year out of the workforce to care for kids makes you a stay-at-home parent. The equivalent time out in most European countries allows you to remain a "professional" on temporary leave.

What’s in a name? A lot, it turns out. If taking time off to care for children is automatically labeled stay-at-home parenthood, it will affect the willingness to do it, since doing so has obvious implications for a person's career, earning power, and sense of self— as my Gen Y interviews showed. I support Smith’s recommendation that the US adopt more reasonable parental leave policies. Maybe then we can finally get away from unnecessary labels.

- Astri

Hey, did you know we're writing for True/Slant these days?

Check it out!

http://trueslant.com/lizandastri/ 

I salute thee, Barack Obama. Here is one more reason why:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
------------------------------------
For Immediate Release          April 28, 2009

NATIONAL EQUAL PAY DAY, 2009
- - - - - - -
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION

Harriet Beecher Stowe helped galvanize the abolitionist movement with her groundbreaking literature. Frances Perkins advised President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and led the Department of Labor during one of its most challenging periods in history. Barbara McClintock helped unlock the mysteries of genetics and earned a Nobel Prize. These and countless other women have broken barriers and changed the course of our history, allowing women and men who followed them the opportunity to reach greater heights.

Despite these achievements, 46 years since the passage of the Equal Pay Act and 233 years since our Nation was established with the principle of equal justice under law, women across America continue to experience discrimination in the form of pay inequity every day. Women in the United States earn only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, and today marks the inauspicious occasion when a woman's earnings finally catch up with a man's from the previous year. On National Equal Pay Day, we underscore the importance of this issue to all Americans.

If we wish to honor our Nation's highest ideals, we must end wage discrimination. The Founders established a timeless framework of rights for the American people. Generation after generation has worked and sacrificed so that this framework might be applied equally to all Americans. To honor these Americans and stay true to our founding ideals, we must carry forward this tradition and breathe life into these principles by supporting equal pay for men and women.

Wage discrimination has a tangible and negative impact on women and families. When women receive less than their deserved compensation, they take home less for themselves and their loved ones. Utilities and groceries are more difficult to afford. Mortgages and rent bills are harder to pay. Children's higher education is less financially feasible. In later years of life, the retirement that many women have worked so hard for—and have earned—is not possible. This problem is particularly dire for women who are single and the sole supporters of their families. Women should not and need not endure these consequences.

My Administration is working to advance pay equity in the United States. The first bill I signed into law as President, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, allows more women to challenge pay discrimination by extending the timeline within which complaints can be filed. This law advances the struggle

for equal pay, but it is only an initial step. To continue this progress, I issued an Executive Order establishing the White House Council on Women and Girls. This high-level body, composed of Cabinet members and heads of sub-Cabinet agencies, is charged with advancing the rights and needs of women, including equal pay.

Still, Government can only advance this issue so far. The collective action of businesses, community organizations, and individuals is necessary to ensure that every woman receives just treatment and compensation. We Americans must come together to ensure equal pay for both women and men by reminding ourselves of the basic principles that underlie our Nation's strength and unity, understanding the unnecessary sacrifices that pay inequity causes, and recalling the countless women leaders who have proven what women can achieve.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 28, 2009, as National Equal Pay Day. I call upon American men and women, and all employers, to acknowledge the injustice of wage discrimination and to commit themselves to equal pay for equal work.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-eighth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

BARACK OBAMA

(Originally published April 19, 2006 in The Huffington Post.)

Until recently, many of us twentysomethings believed that we were invincible. Alas, in these tough economic times, some of us have succumbed-- gracefully, no doubt-- to that catchy "last one hired, first one fired" refrain. Some of our smugness may be gone, but at least we still have our dashing good looks and our health, right?

But what about our parents? I've recently begun thinking about mine. My mom walks religiously and eats organic, darling. Dad is a 61-year-old trapped in a 45-year-old's body. He hasn't touched a drop of liquor in 20 years (had a lifetime share back in the Russian Motherland), doesn't smoke or even drink coffee, and can be seen darting back and forth in his pool year-round. Unfortunately, absolutely none of these enviable habits guarantee that my parents will remain healthy in the years to come.

The difficult realization that my parents are mere mortals made my heart skip a beat when I learned about Melton v. Farmers Insurance Group, a November 2008 U.S. District Court decision which ruled that Farmers was not required to grant an employee's request to work from home in order to care for her cancer-stricken mother. The employee that brought the suit, Shawna Melton, is a single-mother with a young child. Melton's request to work from home was denied and eventually she was fired for excessive absenteeism. Melton sued her employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and Oklahoma public policy. The court ruled that though they were "not unmoved" by the plaintiff's situation, the company was not guilty of discrimination under those laws.

Whatever the legal intricacies of this particular case, there is a greater social issue at play. In the United States, there is no law that requires employers to provide employees with sick days, let alone allow employees to take sick days to care for ill family members. This is not the case in other rich countries: of the top 20 economies in the world, the United States is the only one that does not have a national standard for paid sick days. As a result, nearly half of all full-time private sector employees in the U.S. get no paid sick days at all.

Why doesn't our system of social protections help us deal with events as inevitable and uncontrollable as the illness of our children and parents? Why should we have to sue--sometimes unsuccessfully--to take care of our families, in a country that so vehemently espouses the importance of "family values"?

To my mind, the best course of action for Farmers would have been to grant Ms. Melton's request to work from home (they had, after all, previously allowed an employee to work from home to care for his disabled wife. Is it really fair to leave these decisions up to managers?) Farmers would have gained a more productive and eternally loyal employee--and probably lowered overhead office costs to boot. But how far should the law go in regulating employer actions? Can you really legislate flexibility?

Certainly, employers should be free to run their companies as they see fit. But what if they prefer not to hire Asians or lesbians or balding men? We have laws against that. (Okay, maybe not for bald guys.) Laws are extremely important in our society; companies fear lawsuits and jurisprudence often shapes our norms. We cannot always rely on lawsuits, however, to solve our social problems. For one thing, the legal process is costly and time-consuming. Besides, in some cases laws have not kept up with dramatic changes in our society, such as the rise of single-parent families (see Melton v. Farmers).

If we really want change, we have to demand more responsive legislation and far more responsive employers. In 2005, Senator Edward Kennedy introduced the Healthy Families Act, federal legislation that would have given most workers the right to seven paid sick days a year to take care of their medical needs and the medical needs of their families. The bill was never voted on.

The political dillydallying on sick leave is getting old--and so are our parents, I'm afraid. At the end of the day, if I was in the position of having to care for a sick parent I would want the option of leave and of an alternative work arrangement-- wouldn't you? Your parents may be superhuman in your eyes, but at some point they will need your help. Will your employer stand in the way?

- Vetta

Your friends here at The Lattice Group were recently interviewed by Christine Louise Hohlbaum, author of the upcoming book, "The Power of Slow: 101 Ways to Save Time in Our 24/7 World."  Check out the interview here!

Astri also met with the tantalizing ladies behind the Swedish design duo Hjärta Smärta, and they blogged about the exchange on their blog "Hall of Femmes". If you speak Swedish, check it out here!

Law & Order: Family Responsibilities Discrimination Edition

 Fast-forward a few years. We're no longer in a recession, you're back to eating out six days a week -- tsk, tsk! -- and you've finally been promoted to Assistant Master of the Universe. Oh, and you're about to have a kid.

You've been a Lattice Groupie for years, so you're sufficiently brainwashed: both you and your partner intend to take parental leave in order to cater to your screaming baby's every need during what everyone keeps insisting will be "precious" first months. You're the adventurous one, so you volunteer to go first. You march into your boss's office, head held high, and serve notice that you'll be taking advantage of the company's three-month paid parental leave benefit-- the one they always mention during recruitment interviews. The boss heartily congratulates you. A month later, you're passed over for promotion to Associate Master of the Universe. Jim, who you're pretty sure can't read, becomes Associate Master of the Universe instead, and gives you smug looks at the water-cooler. 

Clearly, this is a dramatization -- a brilliant one, yes, but an exaggeration and simplification, nonetheless. I'm not saying that this is going to happen to you or is even likely to happen. Plenty of employees successfully arrange to take time off work for a number of reasons. Still, as a new policy brief by the Sloan Work and Family Research Network points out, family responsibilities discrimination (FRD) is a growing concern. Cases alleging family responsibility discrimination have risen 400% between 1995 and 2005. The problem is that there is currently no federal law and only two state laws that expressly prohibits FRD (ugh, another acronym to remember). 

Laws are not cure-alls and it's unwise to rely on the justice system to solve all of our social ills. Lawsuits are costly and time-consuming. Still, this is a nation where the mere mention of "punitive damages" is enough to get businesses in line. Laws, eventually, can set norms. The bottom line is that employment discrimination against workers based on their responsibilities to care for family members is just wrong. It is likely that at some point in your life, you will need to make decisions at work based on your family life: the great majority of people will have children and you cannot predict when a family member will become ill. Your employer should not legally be allowed to hold this against you. 

Certainly, federal legislation should protect otherwise well-performing employees from being fired, passed over for promotion, or paid less just because they lawfully take family leave. Women are especially likely to be paid less or passed over for promotion if they are mothers-- thanks to stereotypes associated with what motherhood entails. Not cool, to say the least. 

 - Liz

The Recession may be a “Darwinian unleashing of talent into the entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

When I join a conversation about the Recession (and most conversations seem to be about “It” these days), I risk coming off as obnoxiously upbeat. Why? I’m a silver lining kinda gal, and especially now. This is not to discredit the great financial loss and personal rough and tumble that so many are experiencing. Not at all. It is simply to send out some positive vibrations about where “It” may lead us. With massive corporations falling to their knees, we may be at the perfect juncture to re-think the way in which corporate America, and careers within that multi-faceted beast, works. People often like to tell me it’s time to shove all of my flexible work pontifications somewhere unpleasant. I think quite the opposite: it’s time to shout them out loud! Companies that want to make it out of this deep valley and thrive in the future are going to have to be innovative. They are most likely going to have to re-structure, and that doesn’t always mean simply laying people off. It means re-thinking the way in which business is done, the way in which employees grow within a company etc. Did you ever think of the fact that having workers work from home can decrease overhead cost in terms of office space? Or that rigid vertical hierarchies may be stifling creative energy that inter-level dialogue and horizontal hierarchies may unleash?

The Recession also means that individuals are going to need to become more innovative and entrepreneurial. And they already are. The New York Times recently wrote a piece about the growing wave of entrepreneurs, entitled “Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own.” Matt Richtel and Jenna Wortham write:

“Plenty of other laid-off workers across the country, burned out by a merciless job market, are building business plans instead of sending out résumés. For these people, recession has become the mother of invention.”

For inspiration, read the NYTimes article here!

- Astri

Photo on Flickr by mrkathika under Creative Commons License. 

The Center for Networking Excellence -- there really is a center for everything -- is hosting a live teleconference specifically for Gen Yers. That would be you. I keep signing up for teleconferences, only to completely forget about them. If you have more discipline than me, or, say, a calendar, perhaps you can give it a shot. Here's the info:

The Gen Y Guide to Effective Job Search Networking

• Get on a recruiter's radar screen
• Build relationships after the first contact
• Follow up without being a pest
• Avoid some of the pet peeves that recruiters and employers have about Gen Y networking technique

About Caroline Ceniza-Levine

To scimp or to splurge on social welfare? 

You’ve grown up hearing, from your parents and other well-meaning adults, that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Free samples at Costco (easily a meal, really) have proven to you that this isn't necessarily so.  You’ve also heard from critics of social welfare spending — again, possibly your parents — that sure, it’s all fine and dandy that Sweden and France have free child care and paid parental leave and long vacations, but it costs them (!!) in taxes, productivity, and self-worth, among many — many! — other economic and moral factors.  

We here at The Lattice Group are going to level with you: nobody — not a single political scientist, economist, sociologist, or any other kind of –ist — has proven the effect of social welfare spending on an economy, good or bad. A former political science professor of mine recently put the issue in perspective for me:

"Views on these issues tend to go in cycles.  When I was in grad school in the late 1980's, the dominant academic perspective was that the Swedish-style social welfare system simply couldn't be sustained. (I was close to a fellow grad student from Sweden who said Swedes were jumping ship to get to the US). The economic 'tigers' of that time - Korea, and later Ireland - all were adopting a version of the U.S. free market approach, and Thatcherism reigned supreme in Europe.  Now, two decades later, the worm has turned, at least as it is reflected among best sellers.  These reversals have drummed a healthy skepticism into me regarding whether many of the arguments made by 'experts' are grounded in solid research.”

Despite the lack of concrete evidence, there are some things that we do know. For one thing, Sweden and France still stand; and despite more rightist governments in recent years, generous social welfare spending, on the whole, is not going anywhere soon. The Washington Post recently reported that “even in this time of financial crisis and economic slump, when deficits are growing and leaders are looking for cuts everywhere, no one in France, from the left or the right, has proposed reducing government expenditures” for family-friendly measures like “long maternity leaves, child-support payments, or public schooling for toddlers.”

We also know that Sweden and France spend a significant chunk of their GDP on social welfare expenditures — the most in all of Europe, in fact. Social protection expenditures represented 29.7 percent of French GDP and 32.3 percent of Swedish GDP in 2000. In comparison, the U.S. spent only 15.8 percent of its GDP on social welfare programs during the same year (this figure includes spending by all levels of the government. The figure for the federal government is much smaller: approximately 2 to 4 percent of GDP).

Fine, we spend less money on social welfare programs, but, as our parents and their well-meaning friends insisted all our lives, this must mean that we’re using “our” money more wisely! It’s going straight into our pockets, instead of increasing the size of the government! Right?

Unclear. Census data shows that median household income fell 3.8 percent from 1999 to 2004. And this drop occurred during a period when average productivity rose three percent per year. Someone is making more money, to be sure, but it’s probably not you. (To be fair, income stagnation is a problem for the European middle-cass as well).

So, we’re not making more money thanks to our ascetic social welfare spending habits. Nor, as the last post indicates, are we guaranteed the quality of life goodies that our friends across the Atlantic get, like health care, paid parental leave, paid sick leave, and vacations. On top of all this, we’re working more than ever and a whole lot more than our European frenemies. Over the past 25 years, the combined weekly work hours of dual-earner couples with children under 18 at home has increased by an average of 10 hours per week, from 81 to 91 hours. And fellas, you’re taking the brunt of it: a full 30 percent of fathers with children under 14 report working 50 or more hours a week. Meanwhile, in 2002, full-time workers in France worked an average of 37 hours per week, and only 5 percent worked more than 48 hours, according to Eurostat. Swedes worked an average of 40 hours per week and only 2 percent worked more than 48 hours.

It appears that income is stagnant regardless of whether you scrimp on social welfare spending or go to town at Welfare-R-Us. The difference seems to be that Europeans demand a certain standard of living for their tax-dollars that we Americans keep insisting we can do without. I, for one, am done being so accommodating. I want universal health care, paid parental leave, public child care and preschool of impeccable quality, sick leave and real vacation time (that’s right, 10 days a year will not cut it). If the government can pony up trillions of dollars to fight a war they’re not positive they have to fight (WMDs?) and even less sure they can win, they can certainly meet these demands. Or are we really going to admit that France and Sweden can do something America can’t? Ask your parents how they would feel about conceding that.  

- Liz

register photo by KarenMarleneLarsen and sale photo by japi14 on flickr.com under creative commons license.

Work/Life Policies in the United States, France, and Sweden

Americans are generally quite skeptical of welfare, which many associate with programs for the poor, the needy, the downtrodden. And who likes poverty? Who wants to rally around downtrodden-ness? Not this guy!

It need not be like this, folks. Welfare can be for everyone. Some welfare programs, like Social Security, already are (and good thing, too, because I don’t want to be sending out resumes at age 80). Not to get all sappy on you, but welfare is about increasing the well-being of society — and that’s a good thing.

So put away your frayed and thinning wallet and let’s go window shopping for welfare!

First Stop: Main St., USA

The U.S. is like the Wal Mart of work and family policies. The rich people don’t shop there (or even know that they sell clothes) and the people that do are leaving with a bunch of crap that’s going to fall apart in a few washes:

• Universal health care: No.
• Paid parental leave: No.
  
• Instead, workers are entitled to up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave if they work for a company with 50 or more employees. Many other restrictions apply.
• Paid sick leave: No.
• Guaranteed paid vacation: No.
  
• On average, full-time workers in medium-to-large companies receive 9.6 days of paid vacation after one year of employment and 13.8 days after five years.
• Public day care and/or preschool: No.
  

If U.S. work and family policies were an outfit, Tim Gunn would not be pleased.

France

If the U.S. is the Wal Mart of work and family policies, France is Chanel — elegant, a bit traditional, and every woman’s dream. Many have argued that France’s generous family policies are meant to sweeten the deal for women to have kids, making it easier for them to combine work and family life. Though men aren’t top priority when it comes to parental leave, they benefit from a host of more universal working policies — much like men benefit from being around a bunch of women wearing Chanel:

• Universal health care: Yes.
  
• Paid Parental Leave: Yes.
  
• Women are entitled to 16 weeks of paid maternity benefits at 100 percent of earnings up to a ceiling of $2,589 Euros (US $3,245.40) a month. All employees and even the self-employed are eligible for these benefits. 
• Men don’t fare as well: they are only entitled to 2 weeks of paternity leave (at 100% of earnings up to the same ceiling).
• All employees who have worked at least one year before the birth of a child (either parent, but not both) can take time off until the child reaches the age of three (this benefit is a flat rate payment of $513 euros (US$643) per month for families whose income is below a certain level. Families that earn above that level, about 10 percent of the population, are still eligible for time off but without government pay.
• Tax relief: Yes.
• For child care expenses and a family allowance.
  
• Public day care and/or preschool:  Yes.
• Approximately 25 percent of children under the age of three attend day care centers (crèche) and a 95 percent of children ages three to six attend public preschools (école maternelle).
  
• Preschool is completely free, while parents bear 25 percent of day care costs.
  
• Both are considered extremely high quality. The downside is long waiting lists for spaces, especially in Paris.
• Paid vacation: Yes.
  
• Workers are entitled to 2.5 working days of leave for each month worked, once they have worked at least 1 month. This amounts to five weeks of leave a year.
  

Sweden

We have reached the shopping equivalent of Gucci — couture both men and women want.

• Universal health care: Yes.
  
• Paid parental leave: Yes.
• Swedish parents are entitled to 16 months of parental leave, which can be split between the man and the woman as they wish, except for the “daddy month,” which is reserved strictly for the father and meant to encourage men to take parental leave.
  
• During this time, Swedes receive 85 percent of their income for the first 30 days, 75 percent for the next 210 days, and a flat rate starting on day 241.
• Parents are entitled to 120 days of paid leave to care for children under 12 at 75 percent of their salary.
• Tax relief: Yes.
  
• Universal non-taxable family allowance.
• Flexible Work Arrangments: Yes.
• Parents get the legal right to reduce the work day by 25 percent until the child is eight.
• Paid Vacation: Yes.
• At least 25 days (5 weeks) of paid vacation per year, including at least 4 weeks of continuous leave from June to August.

Sure, Chanel and Gucci are pricey (we’ll discuss next time), but do you really want to be stuck in Wal Mart garb for the rest of your life?
 

- Vetta

"mumu pantsuit nightmare " by dscotthirsch on flickr.com under creative commons license. chanel photo from style.com. 

Work/life policies in the U.S., France, and Sweden

     Comparing the current period of economic crisis in America with the Great Depression is just too tempting. A chance to dig up old footage, photos, and mythologies: yes, please! Nevermind that unemployment is nowhere near what it was then— 25 percent when FDR took office and 14.6 percent when he left. Current levels are at 7 to 8 percent; nothing to sniffle at, but somewhere short of a jumping-off-financial-buildings and stuffing money in the mattress kind of crisis (for more, see the Presidential Power blog).

Still, for me the comparison between the New Deal period and today rings true, if only in a somewhat naively hopeful way. FDR is credited with implanting the notion that the government should provide a social safety net to protect citizens from inevitable, often cyclical, economic downturns. Some argue he succeeded in ingraining this expectation in the American consciousness.

I’m not so sure. In my opinion, the U.S. social safety net lets far too many people fall through and has so far failed to adapt to the changing dimensions of work and family life in America. My hope is that with the Obama presidency and the economic crisis, the debate over the need and particular shape of a social safety net will resurface. I also believe it’s important to consider how other countries have shaped their safety nets. We don’t have to adopt other systems blindly (it wouldn’t work), but there’s no harm in comparison shopping.
 
And so, for the next week or two, I’ll be posting a series of blogs about work and family policies in the United States, Sweden, and France. If you want to know what’s going on in the Colonies and on the Continent with respect to social policies that affect your working and family life, this is your chance— in relatively digestible doses and maybe even some laughs along the way. Depression jokes are hilarious, right?!

 - Vetta

 Next time: work/life policies (up to date!) in the US, France, Sweden 

window shopping photo by dlemieux on flickr.com under creative commons license

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's In-Flight Wireless
I’m not sure I’ve ever viewed flying as a time to “rest in a blissful, unwired zone,” but the growing presence of Wi-Fi on flights (including Delta, American, and long-timer Lufthansa) continues to beg the question—Technology: Friend or Foe?

Harvard Business Review Caused the Recession
And they admit it, too! HBR discuses —with uncanny honesty—the negative impact of encouraging big-time executive pay for short-term performance: “Executive pay had started a big run-up in the 1980s, and companies were under pressure to justify the increase. Our 1990 article helped companies do just that - with disastrous consequences.” In another new blog, HBR tries to tackle the question “How Much Should Executives Make?” Um, I think I’ll turn somewhere else for the answer to that one, thanks.

Lehman Brothers and Sisters
An NYTimes op-ed argues more diversity is needed in the boardroom : "'There seems to be a strong consensus that diverse groups perform better at problem solving' than homogeneous groups, Lu Hong and Scott E. Page wrote in The Journal of Economic Theory, summarizing the research in the field." Furthermore, a boy-only club at ibanks can lead to bad decision making: "One of the shortcomings of any system of men sitting in front of screens making financial bets was reported last year in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior...That study found that men are particularly likely to make high-risk bets when under financial pressure and surrounded by other males of similar status. As for women, their risk-taking was unaffected by this kind of peer pressure." Basically, men take more risks (usually a good thing in business) than women; but, as we've all seen in recent months, left unchecked too much testosterone can lead to some serious problems-- like, say, global recession. 

Appealing to Your Vanity
New research indicates that stressful careers could make you look old and busted. Just look what stress did to Dubya and former lady-killer Clinton.


What about the boys?
Apparently, working moms are looking to Michelle Obama for change, hoping she will tackle child care, parental leave, and flexibility issues, Reuters reports. Those things sure would be nice. But who are working dads supposed to turn to? Shouldn't we stop looking at the difficulties of combining work and family life as a women’s issue? Men have just as much responsibility for raising their children. It takes two to tango, as they say.

Growing Some
A dear friend of The Lattice Group recently informed me that he will be asking for 20 vacation days in his upcoming contract negotiation. The standard at his place of employment is a miserly 10 days. He credits this article and, well, wanting more vacation with the bold idea. Our thoughts and non-denominational prayers are with you, friend!

Work/life balance for all,

- The Lattice Group

Technology: Friend or Foe?

For a small —but growing— segment of society, the world really is an interconnected, globalized, and techtastic place. There's gchat to save you from workplace induced comas, Skype to talk to loved ones on the cheap, and of course the iPhone to, well, do anything you want (huzzah!).

To keep up-to-date with the latest and greatest in technology there's TechCrunch, a blog that reports on everything from the newest widgets to the latest Silicon Valley start-ups. Very often, I don’t understand a word they’re saying (PHP-what?). Still, TechCrunch has introduced me to a whole host of really interesting new web wonders, like Virgance, a for-profit company that aims to lead us to the greener pastures of Activism 2.0; Trackle, which allows you to track just about anything trackable; and Google’s new location-aware email signatures for Gmail, which if enabled will sign emails with something like “Sent from: Los Angeles, CA” (this feature was invented by a Google engineer during his paid free time, known as “20-percent-time,” by the way).

When I first visited trackle.com, I was giddy with excitment. After spending some time importing all the things I want to track (headlines on CNN, news on work/life issues, cheap tickets to Stockholm, ski conditions at Big Bear) I sat back and waited for my life to become easy, informed, and organized.

I’m still waiting.

When I visited the site the next day, my trackle inbox showed 375 new alerts. Granted, all the information was presented in an extremely accessible way and perhaps I went a little overboard in my trackling. Still, I couldn’t help feeling more anxious than ever. There’s just so much information out there, and so little time! (Apparently, teens are up to the challenge— a new study reports that they spend an average of 31 hours per week online).

The eternal question remains: where is all of this technology leading us? Will it make our lives —at work and at home— easier? Or more complicated? Unfortunately, current data points toward the latter. Technology has been advancing rapidly for the last 30 years, yet wages have been stagnant and people are working longer than ever. And that's not even counting the effects of the BlackBerry craze (i.e. answering work emails at 2 a.m.) What’s the deal? Are we being bamboozled?

There’s no way to stop technological advancement and I certainly wouldn’t dream of advocating that. On the other hand, we need to consider these issues carefully and make sure that technology is being used to improve our lives, not make our lives even more demanding.

- Yelizavetta

technology - "future vision" photo by $idney under creative commons license.  

I came across The Story of Stuff the other day, while doing my daily drive-by on Facebook. In short: “The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns.” This spiffy little documentary has already had over 4 million viewers-- Web 2.0 at its finest. 

After watching, I had quite the eureka moment: “Ohh. So if I have less stuff, I can work less.” How radical. Some of our Swedish interviewees spoke to this very concept (and a bit more intelligibly):
...

The Lattice Group: Where would you prefer to live, America or Sweden?

“Johan,” 24: Sweden. Perhaps I have the wrong picture of the American way…I don’t need a bizillion dollars; I’m fine with, like, one million dollars! [Laughter]. In America, you can make an insane amount of money. When you start making so much money, the more money you have just shows how successful you are.  For example, if you buy a whole building in Manhattan, you’ll just use one room. And I’m satisfied buying just the one room!

TLG: Do you think work-life balance is realistic?

“Cecilia,” 24: I hope it’s realistic. I’m not sure it is though. I think the demands on people today are crazy, actually. I think a lot of that pressure comes from how society has developed. It’s become a very blatant consumer society. My parents didn’t spend any time on shopping. Now, it’s not just getting a shirt and getting out. There’s this whole culture around [shopping]. [My parent’s generation] had time for stuff that we don’t have time for today. My mom went to community meetings, non-profit stuff. They had a lot more time for people and for their interests…I think that at some point, people are going to think “Wait, do I really need all this stuff?” “No.” “Then do I need the money?” “No.” “Oh, then I can work less.”

Oh, indeed.

- Vetta

Do you know what I love? When the NYTimes confirms something The Lattice Group has been griping about for ages.

In an article yesterday entitled, “Til Children Do Us Part,” Stephanie Coontz discusses the effect that having children has on a modern marriage. Turns out, it tends to be negative. Why? Because it’s first with children that expectations regarding who is responsible for what are truly tested in most relationships. Coontz writes:

“Marital quality also tends to decline when parents backslide into more traditional gender roles. Once a child arrives, lack of paid parental leave often leads the wife to quit her job and the husband to work more. This produces discontent on both sides. The wife resents her husband’s lack of involvement in child care and housework. The husband resents his wife’s ingratitude for the long hours he works to support the family.”

What to do? Make sure the expectations are out on the table before the baby is. If you didn’t think you were signing up to be the primary breadwinner or the primary caretaker when you said your vows, the time to speak up is pre-conception.

But even after you’ve make your expectations clear, the problem of raising and paying for the kid still remains. The fact is that the American system provides so few provisions (like paid parental leave, public daycare etc.) that it may not come down to what you want, but what you have to do. That is why Gen Y must step up and work toward a change in American policy in order to provide what most industrial nations do already. Let’s begin with paid parental leave.

- Astri 

A great article about why America is the only advanced industrialized country IN THE WORLD that doesn't have gauranteed vacation time. It has little to do with work-ethic and everything to do with keeping up with the Joneses.

This isn't the first time The Lattice Group gripes about vacation. Check out some previous blogs:

Time for Time Off! 

And its two add ons:

I and II 

Obama Does it Better
President Obama signed his first bill as President — woop, woop — of the United States:  the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which overturned a 2007 Supreme Court decision that made it harder for employees to challenge unlawful pay discrimination based on gender, race, age, and disability. In his remarks, Obama gave a shout out to his daughters. Up next (ideally)? The Paycheck Fairness Act, which would, among other things, ensure that courts require employers to show that wage disparities are job-related, not sex-based, and consistent with business needs.

Golddiggers Gone Wild 2.0
Ladies who recently lost their meal tickets, or likely will soon, join together, bitching and blogging on Dating a Banker Anonymous. The blog is a “safe place” where women can dish out gems like this post:“Ladies take heed.  Your FBF is not having a good day.  The GDP has fallen the most since 1982.  Former stalwarts, MS and GS are expected to announce more lay-offs [...] Tonight is not the night to make a fuss when your plans to spend the evening with your FBF in some exposed-brick-candlelight wine bar gets alt tabbed for an apartment party in the LES with Bankers Club or Three Olives vodka.  Just let your FBF blackout how and wherever he pleases tonight.” FYI, FBF is DABA for “Finance guy Boyfriend (the G is silent)." Bottom line: not a bad blog to check out for economic updates and analysis—as long as you don’t have much of a gag reflex.

Flexibility, sittin’ pretty
People roll their eyes at the idea of workplace flexibility even during goodtimes. Ergo during this grim period of global economic recession, The Lattice Group should just slink off, quietly, and nurse our wounds—right? Wrong! Rueters reports: “While flexible work arrangements are nothing new, in tough economic times some companies use telecommuting or job sharing to attract, keep and encourage employees, experts say.” Flexiblity is indeed an excellent reward, as many of the young people we’ve interviewed have insisted, and clearly it shouldn’t be relegated to recession-only status. Still, if you’ve been dying for a four-day workweek, this may be the perfect time to tell your boss about how much energy, morale, and cash money such a move would save (hey, it worked in Australia).  

Speaking of Australia?
(How rarely one gets to say that.) As part of the country’s economic stimulus package, the federal government down under will offer small business up to $15,000 in set-up costs for family-friendly work arrangements. This might be their best idea since Vegemite.  

Oy Vey
France’s justice minister, Rachida Dati, the first Muslim woman to hold a major government post, went back to work five days after giving birth. This sparked debate about maternity rights and the duties of new mothers.  She also wore fancy clothes to prisons. This sparked debate, too, but not as much. (The last time male parental leave or couture sparked controversy? Right.)

Finally, a shameless plug
Yes, it’s true: we’ve already posted this, emailed you about it, posted it on Facebook (news feed and status update, naturally), gchated, IMed, Skyped, celled, and so on. If, somehow, you managed to escape the barrage, I got you now. We blogged on The Huffington Post, about what we think Gen Y wants, and we’d like you to read it. Here. Don’t make me beg. Fav comment : “They gave these kids trophies simply for showing up. They were in the vanguard of the self esteem movement, so a lot of Y-ers were brought up to believe they were Unique Shiny Snowflakes who had a vast array of mad skilz, when in reality they raised a cohort who has no clue what their true skills and talents are.” Buuuuuurn!

Work/life balance to all,
- Vetta, a Unique and Shiny Snowflake
 

The Agenda: Expanding Family Leave, Paid Sick Days, Flexible Work Arrangements

Obamamania continues. This weekend I visited a friend at his parents’ house. Charming, loving, and completely normal under most circumstances, his parents had erected an Obama-shrine, displaying magazine covers, newspapers, and DNC postcards bearing our new president’s handsome mug along the piano.

Does the American public have high expectations of Obama? You betcha. Here at The Lattice Group, we’ll be watching, hawk-like, the Administration’s every move on work/family issues.  The promises are big:

“At a time when costs are rising and Americans are working harder just to keep up, President Obama will provide relief for the middle class and support for working people. In addition to his health care and tax relief plans, Obama will make college affordable, reform our bankruptcy and credit card laws, protect the balance between work and family, and put a secure and dignified retirement within the reach of all Americans.” (White House website)

YES, please! Of particular interest to moi are the following agenda items:

• Extend Paid Sick Days to All Workers: Half of all private sector workers have no paid sick days and the problem is worse for employees in low-paying jobs, where less than a quarter receive any paid sick days. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will require that employers provide seven paid sick days per year.
• Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): The FMLA covers only certain people who work for employers with 50 or more employees. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will expand the FMLA to cover businesses with 25 or more employees, and to cover more purposes including allowing: leave for workers who provide elder care; 24 hours of leave each year for parents to participate in their children's academic activities at school; leave for workers who care for individuals who reside in their home for 6 months or more; and leave for employees to address domestic violence and sexual assault.
• Encourage States to Adopt Paid Leave: President Barack Obama will initiate a 50 state strategy to encourage all of the states to adopt paid-leave systems. Obama and Biden will provide a $1.5 billion fund to assist states with start-up costs and to help states offset the costs for employees and employers.
• Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve one million more children. They will include measures to maximize performance and effectiveness across grantees nationwide.
• Expand Flexible Work Arrangements: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will address this concern by creating a program to inform businesses about the benefits of flexible work schedules for productivity and establishing positive workplaces; helping businesses create flexible work opportunities; and increasing federal incentives for telecommuting. Obama and Biden will also make the federal government a model employer in terms of adopting flexible work schedules and permitting employees to petition to request flexible arrangements.
• Protect Against Caregiver Discrimination: Workers with family obligations often are discriminated against in the workplace. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will commit the government to enforcing recently-enacted Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines on caregiver discrimination.

This reads like a Lattice Wish List (not to mention the important programs for low-wage and struggling workers, like raising the minimum wage and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit). At first, I thought, “better not hold my breathe.” But then I just repeated “Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can” to myself over and over again.

Next thing you know, I’ll be cutting out newspaper clippings for my Obama scrapbook and lighting incense around a gold-plated bust of Barack.

- Vetta

photo by fensterme under creative commons license on flickr

Back in April, Republicans in Congress had blocked the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a measure that would faciliate judiciary procedures for an employee discriminated against on the basis of age, sex, race, religion or country of origin.

But fear not, dear citizens! In the first week of the new session of Congress, the House of Representatives approved the Fair Pay Act; yesteray, the bill was adopted by a 61 to 36 vote in the Senate.  Huzzah! Now, we just need President Obama's John Hanckock and fair pay, here we come. 

From a report by the AFP (nothing in the NYtimes yet):

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act reverses a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that had narrowed to 180 days the time period during which an employee can file a claim of wage discrimination after the original pay-setting decision.

Under the proposed legislation, employees would have 180 days from receiving a discriminatory paycheck to file their claim.

"There is no reason anyone should take home a paycheck different from his or her coworker's based solely on that worker's gender, race, age, ethnicity or disability. And in a historically weak economy such as ours, American families can no longer afford it," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement.

Click here to watch a short clip on Lilly Ledbetter, a Goodyear employee who sued when she learned through an anonymous tip that she was being paid significantly less than her male counterparts doing the same job. Though she initially won the lawsuit, the Supreme Court overturned the decision because she had not initiated legal action within six months of the first instance of discrimination (which she had no way of knowing about until she recieved that annonymous tip). The new law would overturn that decision. 

Check out our latest contribution to the blogosphere:

What Gen Y Really Wants- And Why We Should Care 

Will you have to care for a sick loved one someday? Will your employer let you?

Until recently, many of us were quite certain that we were invincible. Perhaps the only ones who now definitively know better are those fallen young analysts among us. Alas, in these tough economic times, some of us have succumb— gracefully, no doubt— to that catchy “last one hired, first one fired” refrain. Well, at least you still have your dashing good looks and your health, eh?

But what about your parents? I’ve recently begun thinking about mine. My mom is a sprightly 45; she’s gone through a mid-life crisis slash makeover, walks religiously and eats organic, darling. My dad is a 61-year-old trapped in a 45-year-old’s body. He hasn’t touched a drop of booze in 20 years (had a lifetimes share back in the Motherland), doesn’t smoke or even drink coffee, and can be seen darting back and forth in his pool year-round. Unfortunately, absolutely none of these enviable habits are even a remote guarantee that my parents will remain in good health.

Which is why my heart skipped a beat when I came across an article bluntly entitled “Company Not Obliged to Allow Employee to Work at Home to Care for Mother with Cancer Under the ADA” in the Labor Relations Bulletin.

The sad facts: a single parent whose mother was diagnosed with cancer asked her employer if she could work from home in order to be able to care for her sick mother and young child. The request was denied and eventually she was fired for excessive absenteeism. The woman sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and Oklahoma public policy. The court ruled  (Melton v. Farmers Insurance Group) that though they were “not unmoved” by the plaintiff’s situation, the company was not guilty of discrimination under those laws.

Whatever the legal intricacies of this particular case (and with one humbling semester of Con Law under my belt, I will bow out of that discussion, thank you), there is obviously a far greater issue here. In the United States, there is no law that requires employers to provide you with sick days, let alone allow you take sick days in order to care for ill family members. Not so, in many European countries. But even this glaring hole in our system of social protections doesn’t quite get to the heart of the matter. When push comes to shove, how far should employers have to go to accommodate their employees' family responsibilities?

To me, it seems that it would be more fruitful for Farmers to have granted the plaintiff’s request. This employee would have been far more productive if the employer let her work from home, rather than costing the company by being absent. Farmer's could have gained a grateful, eternally loyal employee to boot. But how far should the law go in regulating employer actions? Can you really legislate flexibility?

Certainly, employers should be free to run their companies as they see fit. But what if they prefer not to hire Asians or lesbians or balding men? We have laws against that. (Okay, maybe not for bald guys).  Laws are extremely important in our country; companies fear lawsuits like whoa and jurisprudence often shapes our norms. I believe, however, that we can’t rely on the legal system to solve these issues. The public, employees, you, me— we all need to make it known to the government and employers that we demand and deserve certain workplace protections. If I was in the position of having to care for a sick parent, a situation I have no control over, mind you, I would want the option of leave and of alternative work arrangements— wouldn’t you? The problem is that for us youngins, it is difficult to foresee these situations and it is perhaps even more difficult to make demands (“first one hired, first one fired,” remember?).

But it is not impossible. Here at The Lattice Group, we look forward to presenting you with every opportunity we can dig up to take action on important work-family issues, whether they will affect you now, in twenty years, or, hopefully, never.

- Vetta

To start, see the post below, and support part-time unemployment insurance.

"Company Not Obliged to Allow Employee to Work at Home to Care for Mother with Cancer Under the ADA." Fair Employment Practices Guidelines. 1/1/2009. Labor Relations Bulletin. Issue 644, p3-4. 

Photo under Creative Commons License by &y on Flickr  

Obama Considers Extending Unemployment Insurance to Part-Timers, and Other Goodies

If you just watched the inaguration, wipe those tears from your eyes and get to work rebuilding America. Something you can do from the comfort of your couch of ergonomically designed office chair, is ask your Congressional Representative to include the Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act in the American Recovery and Reinvestment plan. Lots of money is going to be spent in the coming months on economic recovery efforts. Make your voice heard in how.

The New York Times recently reported that our newly inagurated President will be stuffing his two-year economic recovery plan with “long-range changes,” like major expansions of government assisted health care and unemployment compensation. (Perhaps this signals the end of short-sighted, costly changes like those festive Bush tax cuts of yore? A girl can dream.)

Let's talk unemployment insurance. Created in 1935, the program only covers full-time workers to this day— despite the fact that the workforce has changed dramatically since then. These days, part-time workers abound: men and women whose schedules must accommodate parenting and other caregiving responsibilities, students trying to fund their educations, individuals who contribute a big chunk of their families’ incomes. And when these people lose their jobs, they should be protected, proportionate to their workplace contributions. 

Show your support for part-time workers (me!), and for other important changes that will help the American economy achieve long-term success.

Click here to ask your Congressional Representatives to include the Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act in the American Recovery and Reinvestment plan proposed by Congress and President Obama.

- Vetta

Photo under Creative Commons License by Steve Rhodes on Flickr

What happens when a NESCAC grad from New Jersey moves to Australia in the pursuit of happiness, and gainful employment?

Welcome to Australia

I decided to move to Australia for a variety of reasons: experience living abroad, great reputation, sound economy (relatively, of course), great sporting culture and beautiful location. Now that I am here and have been in the country for a few months, I found that all these expatriate-alluring qualities are true, but they are not what make Australia so special to everyone who lives and works here. So I found myself asking, what exactly is it about Australia that sets it apart and has everyone raving about its greatness?

In my first weeks roaming around on Australian soil (unemployed of course), I talked to a lot of people and struck up conversations in restaurants and bars. I found that everyone was extremely friendly, and LOVED my “American” accent (which was never pinpointed until after I was asked if I was a Canadian). I decided, however, that the friendliness of the people, although extraordinary, could not be what made Australia unique (seeing as Russell Crowe, prominent Australian, threw a telephone at someone for saying “Whatever…”). Thus, I made it my goal to travel around trying to figure out what it was that made Australia and Australians so appealing. To my disappointment, even after extensive traveling around the greater Sydney area (which is huge, picture a whole American state) , I still could not put my finger on that elusive quality.

And then I finally got a job. I had been employed a few weeks when my boss (a prominent and very well-off Australian) asked me how I was at working around a farm, to which I replied, “I went to college in Vermont. I must be decent.” And, so it was that I ended up two hours southwest of Sydney (the “bush”) working at my boss’s farm to prepare for spring. Naturally, we had a lot of time to talk while working side by side with our hands and the conversation jumped from reading under trees to family to sport and to the financial crisis, among other topics.  We finally hit to the core of my musings once we began to talk about music. My boss was telling me about the leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra (widely considered one of the finest in the world). This is a man that plays a violin that is worth millions of dollars, but as it turns out, all he really wants to do is go surfing. After I heard that, it clicked. I realized exactly what it is that makes Australia such a unique country to live in and work. Everybody, regardless of income or social status, loves much the same things. Of course, people work for luxuries, but their fundamental joys and desires all pretty much center around a  love for the beach, vegemite, meat pies, fish and chips, sports (rugby and cricket), and a nice cold beer:  all things that cross racial, gender and monetary boundaries.  They have also become experts at balancing their work with their life, finding enough time to enjoy themselves whilst still working hard.  Australians work hard when they are in the office or at the job, but they know when it is time to get away and enjoy their personal lives.  This has translated into Australia being an extremely productive and significant world economic player for a nation of only 20 million.  Fortunately, they also largely enjoy the same things, which give them a strong sense of patriotism and pride in their country (Not bad for an island of convicts…).

Subsequently, after a long day at the farm, my boss and I rode into town, grabbed a cold beer and then headed to a nice little fish and chips shop. Sitting with our fish (Barramundi, of course, which is an Australian staple), we made conversation with the girls working the restaurant, a man that came in that loved cars and football, and among ourselves whilst enjoying some of the best, greasiest fish and chips I have ever had. During dinner, I looked up watching the sun set over the buildings of a picturesque quiet main street in the bush of Australia and my boss said, “Mate, Welcome to Australia!”

- Craig Wilson 

Race to the Bottom? No, Thanks. 

“Crisis ‘08” Quote of the Week:

“After Senate Republicans balked at supporting a $14 billion auto rescue plan approved by the House on Wednesday, negotiators worked late into Thursday evening to broker a compromise but they deadlocked over Republican demands for steep cuts in pay and benefits by the United Automobile Workers union in 2009.”

Yep, that’s the problem with the American auto industry, that their workers earn a living wage (about $57,000) and have good benefits. Certainly, their problems of insolvency have nothing to do with mismanagement or lack of innovation. Or that gas mileage on American cars hasn’t improved in nearly one hundred years (Ford’s Model A's & T's got 25 to 39 miles a gallon).

In fact, American car manufacturing may have reached its zenith in the 1920s, when car production at the Ford Motor plant soared from 300,000 in 1914 to more than two million in 1923, thanks to what later became known as “Fordism.” Fordism routinized mass production through four main principles: 1) moving assembly lines, 2) specialized machinery, 3) high wages, and 4) low-cost products. The whole idea was that the factory workers who manufactured automobiles would actually be able to buy those automobiles. So would other blue collar workers around the country, helping our consumer society grow and prosper. Moreover, the introduction of relatively high wages dramatically impacted absenteeism, labor turnover, and labor productivity. Profits soared.

I can think of few innovations drummed up by American auto manufacturers since the 1920s. It seems that increasing wages and taking care of its employees is just about the only thing they’ve done right in the last century. Though I don’t necessarily support an auto automaker bailout—the industry as it’s currently conceived is bound to go belly up, if not now then in 10 or 15 years—I’m appalled that our elected representatives suggested lowering wages as a solution. It’s simply not a very good one—and it sends the wrong message to other employers.  Get with it, Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama: a race to the bottom of the payscale is going to do nothing for our economy. Even if you don't know the difference between an engine and a windshield wiper, we should all be standing by the United Automobile Workers. It’s their benefits and pay on the cutting block today. You think you're safe because your company gave you a Blackberry and a sick bonus last year. But is your salary and 401k next?  

- Vetta

Full NYTimes article here.

 model t photo by sherlock77 on flickr.com under creative commons license.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year, I am especially grateful for the many words of wisdom that the past year's interviews have garnered. Here are some favorites:

Pete Heimbold: Musician Pete Francis and member of Dispatch.

“Music started taking over my life. And there began my career. I really didn’t think of it as a career. I just thought that this is what I loved to do. There’s nothing like being able to say that your work is your love."

Glenn Lowry, Director of the MoMA

“It’s actually all about serendipity...the willingness to let chance give definition to your life.”

“I think the divide in this country at the moment in terms of wealth has made it really difficult to make choices. If you grew up and were lucky enough to go to Middlebury or Williams or Brown, or any of the 50 or 100 outstanding colleges in this country where you’re surrounded by very talented, very capable young men and women, and you look around and you realize that the people who are going to go into investment banking, venture capital, hedge funds, are all going to end up in a decade as multi-millionaires, and those that go into teaching high school or journalism or art history are going to be lucky if they can eek out a miserable living, it starts to really impact what your choices are. Especially if you grew up in an environment where you didn’t have to think about what it meant to live in a nice place, because that’s just where your parents lived.”

Maria Campbell, Maria Campbell Associates, Legendary New York Literary Scout

“I always say you need two years in the office: one year to learn and one year to do your job.”

“The key, ultimately, to doing it all, is having a great partner…I really didn’t know then, because I was a little young at the time, but finding someone good for me involved finding someone that would truly be my life’s partner with whom I could realize myself in my fullest way. That, ultimately, Woody was as invested in me being the best Maria Campbell in the world as I was in him being the best Woodrow Campbell in the world. And that’s pretty much it.”

“Work flat out and establish yourself first because that will stand you in good stead. No matter what happens. You will have a relationship with, ideally, a good employer, you’ll have a good, solid start in what moves you, and when it comes time to have a child you’ll be able to approach that with security in yourself because you’ve established a professional identity.”

Mikaela Kumlin Granit, Foreign Policy Advisor to the Swedish Prime Minister

“You can see that those that make it this far, they always have this one thing: two spouses that are really willing to chip in."

Sigrid Sandström, Artist, Professor, Guggenheim Fellow

"For the purpose of this interview I wish I could say that I am going to have a great career and a great marriage, but I’m suddenly not as interested in a career. I just don’t feel as though, ultimately, that is going to be what fulfills me. With every kind of achievement I’ve had so far, I’ve felt like: is this it? You get some perspective. I do think it comes with age. I’m turning 38 next month and I don’t have anything to prove anymore. When I was younger I had to prove something all the time. I had to get a profession. I had to be something. Now, I finally realize that I don’t have to be something with a label. I’m just going to live my life…Now I know that it won’t make me unhappy if I don’t have a ridiculous career. And Erik (her fiancé) feels the same. He is not super career driven and doesn’t want a powerful position. He wants more time, that’s all he wants. And that has smitten me. You inspire each other. We’re not interested in getting rich, we want a different kind of quality of life."

Marie Ehrling, Scandinavian Business All-Star

“In the beginning it’s about competence—all the hard facts, so to speak. But then, what really makes a difference between a good leader and not a good leader are the more personal things, your personality and how you handle other people. Because the most difficult challenges you have as a top leader are always connected to how people relate to each other…So that people trust you and believe in you. So that you can convince others and spell out your vision. To get people with you. That means how you actually behave, how you communicate, and that you also care about people. I have an expression for this: I look for an inner compass. People who have a firm opinion about their own values. It has to do with a lot of ethical and moral decisions that you have to take out there. You have to use your instincts many times, without making a lot of analyses or calculations or things like that.”

Levi Brooks, Co-Founder of Design Agency "Use All Five"

"It's all about give and take and working accordingly…Get a project done when you say you're going to get it done, but have the freedom to leave and go as you may and control your life. Some people work better at night after the whole family goes to sleep, or sometimes they work a lot better in the morning before everyone is awake. A lot more freedom is just the key to a successful work-life relationship."

Ryan D’Agostino, Articles Editor for “Esquire”

"I wrote a book about how rich people made their money. I went door to door and spoke to people and people starting saying that you have to love what you do. But they really truly believed it. That was a legitimate piece of their success. Because you’re going to work harder, and you’re going to want to work harder, if you love what you do. If you can’t wait to get out of the office, you’re not going to make more money. You shouldn’t want to take a job because you’ve heard it’ll make you a lot of money. Because if you don’t enjoy what you do you won’t make the most you can, even at a job like that."

Antonia Ax:son Johnson, Chairman of the Axelson Johnson Group

 

“I have always been driven by ideas, and then I try to find a way to make money out of it. So that it makes good business sense. Whether it is the environment, or health issues, or quality issues, or design…whatever it is. Where idealism and commercialism meet, that is where change is really brought about. But it has to make good business sense. Or else you will never get people to do it.”

"There is a conflict now between the older and the younger generations, but as my generation moves out of the workforce, there will be less of a conflict…Because we were really brought up to be very loyal not to ourselves, but to our company or our organization or our union or political party…whatever it was. We were brought up to work for a greater cause. And people now have been brought up to work for themselves. The question is: how do you get ‘themselves’ to be something with a common interest? I think that will require very motivating leaders in businesses, because they have to be able to get everybody really charged up about doing something, of achieving something bigger.”

Birgitta Rydbeck, Christies Sweden Chief Representative

"I think you must not forget one reason to why there are fewer women to choose from for the top positions, and this goes for all businesses. The reason is that we, the women, choose to stop at some level. We do not go all the way to the top. It’s a choice we make. It’s not that it’s not open to us…there’s no one who thinks it’s strange for a woman to say, ‘I want to work part-time, or I want to take 18 months of maternity leave.’ We have a choice and we use this choice a lot of the time…Men aren’t expected to ever take breaks, or work part-time. They are expected to work full-time all their lives. I think that this is an advantage that women have, actually…I think we are the privileged sex.”

Thank you to all of our Hot Shot interviews! Now this was just a little snippet of the wealth of wisdom that can be found in all of the full interviews. Check them out by clicking here.

Wishing warm Holiday cheer to all,

Astri

The New American Dream

I come from a family where “credit” is a four-letter word. My parents grew up in the Soviet Union and to this day remain quietly distrustful of all governments. If they could, they would hide all of their money under the mattress. They don’t, but they do insist on some pretty antiquated precautionary measures lest the country collapses. My parents pay for everything—groceries, furniture, SUVs—in cash.  They deal with all financial matters in person; if they don’t know you and your grandmother, they ‘ain’t buying. Stocks are obviously out of the question.

Given my upbringing and the fact that I don’t have a mortgage or kids to send to college, this whole global financial credit crisis is hard to wrap my head around.  The $700 billion dollar bailout? I’m not even going to go there. What I would like to talk to you about today, dear reader, is what us everyday people on Main Street and Park Avenue can do to relieve the impact of the crisis on our daily lives.

New York Magazine has some excellent suggestions. The cover of the latest issue proclaims in big, bold letters: “LIVE WELL, SPEND LESS.” Funny, though, how the contents of the article urge you to spend a whole bunch of money. Take for instance, the magazine’s recommendation that you “surf the first wave of panic-selling” in real estate. Or that you “lease” a Nicole Miller purple-and-gold maxidress (what the hell is a maxidress?) for $130 a night, instead of buying it for $770. Or my personal favorite, that you cook at home instead of eat out—first dropping $300 for a private home cooking lesson, of course.

I have a different idea: let’s live well and spend less. By “spend less,” I mean buy fewer things. Perhaps it’s time that we lucky few, the people who work as much as we do so we can (one-day) afford a Lexus or Manolo Blahniks rather than to put food on the table, decide that actually, we don’t really want a new car or $600 shoes. We could decide that we don’t value luxury gas guzzlers or $770 maxidresses all that much. We could decide to value other stuff instead, like volunteering, or participating in local politics, or spending time with our friends and family. I know these prescriptions sound naive and a bit hackneyed. But perhaps they’re just crazy enough to work.

If you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll take the hint from the personnel director at a pineapple plantation in the Dominican Republic (I’m not making this up).  He said the following about the difficulty of establishing a workforce for a new plantation in the DR:

“It’s not just that workers don’t have strong work ethic…they are indifferent because they have insufficient need for cash. We need to create more necessities so that people will have to work harder to earn money. There is currently nothing to buy.”

We have plenty to buy in America. Perhaps that’s not the way out of this crisis.

- Vetta

Raynolds, Laura T. “New Plantations, New workers: Gender and Production Politics in the Dominican Republic.” Gender and Society.

pineapple photo by giniger on flickr.com under creative commons license. 

I’m head over heels excited about the decision taken by the American people this Tuesday night. I was sharing tears of pride and joy with a room-full of tingling twenty-somethings as President-elect Barack Obama spoke to the country, and the world.

I’ve also been pouring over the news in the wake of the victory, and I must say that some of what I have been reading rubs me the wrong way. First of all, the term First Lady has always bothered me. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the ultimate supporting role, if it wasn’t for the mystifying way in which First Ladies are evaluated, or women in the political seas in general are evaluated. Hillary Clinton was seen as frigid and was railed against for not wanted to “bake cookies.” Sarah Palin was touted as an ideal mother, as though the label “hockey mom” were more important to gain our trust than real political skills. We hardly ever measure a man in politics by his skills as a father, why then must we constantly fuss over the motherhood, and even more preposterous, the housewifely skills, of female politicians?

Here we have Michelle Obama. She is an incredibly accomplished woman in her own right. But instead of talk about her many professional merits, the US press lingers over her role as caretaker, as wife, as mother.

In the New York Times today, there is an article entitled “A Family Expected to Balance State Dinners with Sleepovers.” From a Lattice Group perspective, it is fantastic to see a mention of family life balance mixing into the presidential equation. But when I read the article, I was a bit crestfallen. When wondering what kind of first lady Michelle Obama “wants to be,” the article immediately discusses her leaning when it comes to “the domestic arts.” Granted, they say she only has “a certain amount of patience” for this kind of thing, “She is a get-it-done-efficiently Rachael Ray type...not given to elaborate Martha Stewart-like efforts.” The fact that we’re even harping on the comparison exhausts me.

I salute the future First Lady who, the article claims, “plans to make herself an advocate for working parents, particularly military families, urging better access to child care for all. Trying to juggle public duties with two young children, she will be a living illustration of the very issue she describes.” What I don’t salute, however, is constant evaluation of a First Lady based on her role as a domestic caretaker.

The best evaluation I’ve heard so far? In an article entitled, “A New Type of First Lady” in The Times, the following can be read: “Perhaps the most exciting thing about Michelle however is what having a woman lawyer like her in the White House means. For it is not often one can go to sleep safe in the knowledge that there is an educated, intelligent, sensible female voice being heard in the corridors of power.” Now, those are the kind of First Lady qualities I care about. And it's not about her baking. It’s about her intellectual and professional capacity.

- Astri

photo by Barack Obama on Flickr under Creative Commons License. 

A young man whom we interviewed way back in the early beginnings of The Lattice Group, Will Greene, has just made an interesting, and daring, career move. When we first met him, he was (very) gainfully employed in a fincial services company. When we next met him the former analyst had decided to leave his lucrative desk job to create a non-profit organization of his own-- and this was before the financial melt-down, mind you!

In our interview with Will back in November, he said his dream job would be something that had to do with "working with my body. So, not sitting at a desk typing all day...It would balance the physical and the cerebral. I have no idea what that would be. And if I had a better idea, I would probably be pursuing it right now."

I guess he figured it out, because he's doing it. Check out his website: www.ajuka.org and follow his progress as he explores the world of African dance.

Talk about thinking outside the cubicle.

- Astri 

There is a new book on the market that I suggest you all look out for. It is called "The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace" by Ron Alsop, and the Wall Street Journal offered a glimpse of it this week.

The discussion around Generation Y, or Millennials as Alsop calls us, is only getting hotter. The major question he brings up, at least in the WSJ excerpt, is that of entitlement. We are entitled and employers are annoyed. We expect a lot, we want to shape our work after our lives and not our lives after our work, and we show very little company loyalty.

Now, look. I agree with a lot of what Alsop has to say. I am the first to admit that many of his points, beyond a doubt!, apply to me. Yes, I am in the need of constant (positive!) feedback, I feel lost without structure, I think I have something to say and expect others to listen, I have little inherent respect for vertical hierarchies and favor meritocracy over the ol’ “putting in your time,” and yes, I intend to shape my work after my life, not my life after my work…at least to a certain extent. Alsop seems to cringe at this Gen Y demand for greater power over their personal lives. He wonders how Gen Yers will ever be reliable when they are loyal above all only to themselves? Valid concern. But with the cons come the pros: our generation created social networking sites, were raised with team sports (where, granted, you got a trophy just for participating- hence the trophy kid term), and have always been encouraged to think outside the box and explore our own creativity. As Alsop admits, we Gen Yers “possess significant strengths in teamwork, technology skills, social networking and multitasking.” And so, our entitlement issues aside, the successful companies of the future will be those who figure out how to best tap our unique talent and retain us.

Let me offer all the employers out there a hint for how to keep Gen Yers around: give us room to grow, give us space to voice our opinions, give us encouragemet, and give us flexibility. It’ll be worth it. As Alsop says, “Millennials were bred for achievement, and most will work hard if the task is engaging and promises a tangible payoff.”


Ps. If you don't accomodate us, chances are we’ll leave. Alsop writes that “Justin Pfister, the founder of Open Yard, an online retailer of sports equipment, believes he and his fellow millennials will resist having their expectations deflated. If employers fail to provide the opportunities and rewards millennials seek, he says, they're likely to drop out of the corporate world as he did and become entrepreneurs.” I believe that.

Pps. Language can be very powerful, and words can run away with us. The Gen Y discussion in general defines “entitlement” in negative terms. What about if we define “entitled” not only as possessing feelings of superiority and arrogance (though we surely exhibit a fair amount of that), but as knowing what you want, believing in yourself and expecting to get what you deserve. That begins to sound a lot like the way aggressive and successful businessmen are described. I am often told that women have trouble in the corporate world because they don’t exhibit the same level of confidence and aggression as their male counterparts. Over and over again, I've been told that if you seem like you deserve it, people will think you deserve it (hence why men often exaggerate their skills and are seen as more knowlesgable while women tend to tread more carefully and thus undermine themselves). If the millennial men and women are acting equally “entitled,” perhaps the new generation of ladies might finally be joining the menfolk with some sharper elbows and some greater demands. I’m all for that.

- Astri 

Photo by Alexxa Gotthardt 

Read the full WSJ artice here. 

Take a minute to read about LATTICE writer Will Martin's experiences in Argentina as he grapples with the Big Questions... 

Figuring Yourself Out 

Since graduating nearly 6 months ago from one of these said “prestigious liberal arts colleges,” I have technically only made $10.  Actually, it was 30 Argentinean pesos. Though it may not sound like much, I worked hard for that money. Hunched below the vines, filling my dented metal basket just full enough of Malbec grapes to earn the plastic tokens that I would later trade in for cold, hard cash (or, the three dying, oily, time stained ten peso bills, as it were).  During the ten hours of paid work I completed that day, I felt the weight of the “real world” on my shoulders, and it was indeed uncomfortable. I felt the weight of cheap migrant labor, of profit motivated commoditization, of international trade markets, of consumption. The weight seemed to slowly disarm me as the bent metal clasp that fastened my potato-sack sling injected a pain into my vertebrae that spread, nested, then festered in forgotten joints in my neck and back in the week that followed. Looking back on that pain, the lesson was clear: the “real world” even in the obscure form I found it in, is as harsh and cruel as I had heard. This machine that we face, with its rusted and rigid cogs still cranking ever “forward,” is undeniably a powerful adversary.

"I can’t claim that this quasi-rogue shrugging of societal pressures was all my idea, it was at least half Argentina’s."

If I could accredit one thing more than any other for the random and whimsical successes of my post-graduate life to date, I would have to say that it would be a seemingly reckless abandonment of the pursuit of capital gain. Truth be told, I can’t claim that this quasi-rogue shrugging of societal pressures was all my idea, it was at least half Argentina’s.  I arrived here shortly after graduation with no real plan of what I was going to do. I knew I was running from many things that I left in the US; I also knew that I was chasing many other things, namely romantic dreams, and some vague ideas of what might fall into the basket I had labeled happiness. I thought I would find some sort of job, make some money, and just live. Having applied to graduate school with confidence, the plan was to build a nice little bridge between the subdued pastures of undergraduate student life and the equally subdued yet less intoxicated pastures of graduate student life, maybe drink some wine and speak some Spanish on the way over. Of course plans, as is their nature, never pan out the way you want them to.

I think I was still spending those sad and wilted peso bills with a cricked neck when I got news that I had not been accepted to architecture school. Of course I was disappointed; having listened to the confident well wishes of professors and friends, I neglected to appropriately prepare myself for what was, in retrospect, a likely outcome to my rushed application. Despite the let down, I took solace in the opportunities I might find in this newly gifted liberty. It was as if those two heartfelt sentences sent cordially from the admissions office of Yale had stolen my future of projected success and then replaced it with one of guaranteed freedom. Yet amongst all the confusion of emotions, I couldn’t help but feel like someone was being shortchanged. I just didn’t know if it was me. Soon after receiving the news, I started working, or volunteering I should say, part-time in a winery outside a small city in the Mendoza region. There, in the soft purple blur of passing grapes and the chugging rhythm of a vintage pump, I found enough comforted solitude to make the necessary mental passes to dot the “i”s and cross the “t”s of a life strategy I had been assembling for I while. I worked at the winery through the month of the harvest and then decided to head back to Buenos Aires ready for what would prove to be a test run of this strategy.

"It was anti-regret. It was pro-present. It was essentially the well worn cliché of thrill seekers and drug users"

At the base of the strategy was a romantic, ignorant, and simple motto: do what you want to do.  To simplify things for myself, I stayed away from greater existential questions as much as I could, focusing instead on the short term, applying the strategy to this afternoon or tomorrow. I deflected more difficult questions like “why?” The strategy was a war against the apparent brilliance of the color of the grass on the other side.  It was anti-regret. It was pro-present. It was essentially the well worn cliché of thrill seekers and drug users, “live in the now,” but with a fragile and complex skeleton of logic that I had tailored to be my own. I wanted to live in a world free of the conditional.  I had returned to the capital district intending to do just that.

When I arrived in Buenos Aires for the second time, things indeed felt different. I felt more welcomed by the city. Despite my prearranged plans to keep moving on to Uruguay to work on a goat cheese farm, I decided to stay in the city. I met an art gallery director that had a place to rent in a neighborhood I had never heard of in the forgotten south of the city: Parque Patricios. Soon after I went to a party in the empty house, and I quickly fell in love with the place and its photogenic rawness. In reality I fell in love with the idea of the place. It would become a pawn in the new game I was playing with my life. With a mind full of artsy bohemian images that I photoshopped perfectly with my imagination and then projected onto my future, I moved into my new home, a battered and vacant row-house of sorts, in one of the hardest neighborhoods in the city. I paid $100US a month in rent. I bought a typewriter and a few bottles of alcohol and did what I set out to do in the first place: live.  

"I was living a dream, not the dream per se, but my dream"

I was living a dream, not the dream per se, but my dream: “becoming” a poor, struggling “artist” living in a rough neighborhood abroad, writing bad poetry, starving, drinking, drawing bad drawings, starving, drinking, playing soulful songs with bad lyrics that I had written on the guitar. It was great. Life was good. Thanks to the nature of the streets where I lived, few of my friends, Argentine or extranjero, would visit me outside of daylight hours, and, to their defense, often when people did visit at night, they got robbed. If I left the house at night, I would spend hours hidden in the shaded cover of apartment doorways waiting for my bus. With no phone line, no internet, no TV, just a house and me, I often felt, and indeed was, pretty alone. And that was what I wanted at the time. However, as the weeks passed, the fabricated and fantastic drama of my situation there started to weigh on me as doubt found its way into my logic.

What happened was I started breaking the rules of my strategy: thinking too far ahead, questioning too much. In those weeks, life carried on with it a foggy stigma of disillusionment. The bohemian lifestyle as I had arranged it, I realized, was not for me. Soon after sending my portfolio and pleading letters offering enticing services free of charge out to several architecture studios, I found “work” in a small, progressive firm in one of the richest neighborhoods in the city and started working soon after. When my rent was up, I took the first cab I could flag out of Parque Patricios. When I left I didn’t say goodbye to local friends I had made. This might have been the most “honest” move I had made, playing perfectly the transient role of the rich gringo tourist, which, despite all efforts, I inevitably am.

“'fake it, until you make it.'”

Today my work life has become a strange yet stimulating stew of ventures. Of course, by work life I mean volunteer life. I work almost full time at the architecture studio, twice a week I assistant teach a design class at the University of Buenos Aires, I help prepare presentations for Argentina Green Building Council, I help teach a children’s art workshop on Wednesdays, I give wine tasting classes, I am the protagonist of an Argentinean reality TV show pilot, and I play guitar at a local bar. These are my random and whimsical successes, and though they are non-monetary, they are very real, to me at least. I do sometimes find it funny, that I don’t know how to really do any of these things. I am not an actor nor an architect nor an artist. There is a phrase that I picked up somewhere that seems appropriate for this stage in our lives: “fake it, until you make it.” I know there are those that think it is irrational or even dumb to try and figure out who you are by learning what you are not. Though often I myself am irrational and even more frequently I am dumb, I find the sentiment ill-founded. I think that we all must dabble in the negative space as well as the positive. In these experiments you find the perspectives with which you can paint real meaning, real self. To know yourself you must meet yourself, all parts of yourself. This is impossible without an introduction. Of course such introductions, such opportunities, need not come from some trip abroad or an unpaid internship; they can be found almost anywhere if you remain open to them. With a bit of luck and humility, you can find yourself in some pretty interesting situations, wearing some funny hat that you never thought you would never wear in the first place—and liking how it fits.  For me, it took blowing every last penny of my hard earned savings, yet this was a price I am willing to pay for such perspectives.

I would actually say that I am living a very happy, and work/life balanced life. Outside of “work” I go out with friends to the best restaurants, bars, cafes, museums, theaters, and clubs in Buenos Aires half of the time. The rest of the time I spend in parks drinking mate (a bitter South American tea), taking photographs, writing, rock climbing, and exploring new neighborhoods. I would be as bold as to claim victory, if it weren’t for a few critical pieces to the puzzle that are missing. Their absence, I know, has as much to do with my circumstances as they do my choices. I know I am not alone in this.

The first missing piece: love. I have been lucky enough, you could say, to know what a potent power such an addition can be. It is the trump card. Love can be that scary and magical chemical that exists only in rumors of the back rows of high school chemistry classrooms. A compound solution that, at the right molarity, can with one drop turn water into the most beautiful and passionate red you have ever seen. Yet just one more drop of the same solution might cause a series of fiery chain reactions that could end in serious injury or death. If you choose to brave such a path, which I recommend whole heartedly, proceed with caution and be sure to wear your lab goggles. Despite my lingering handicap, I too hope to find this piece again, and when I do, the real challenge will begin.

The second missing piece: consistency. In my case, I know that whatever balance, whatever happiness that I have achieved here through the philosophical rationalization I employed and the economic “suicide” I may have committed, will come to an end when I leave Argentina. My savings are almost all spent, my Spanish is worsening from fatigue, friends are leaving, and I, like I always knew I would, will be going home. When I arrive there, I will have to again pick up old weights and I will surely find new ones, all of which I will have to try and balance. The truth, it seems, is that the kind of work/life balance many of us are looking for cannot exist in the now; it is, by necessity, inter-temporal. It is only found in longevity, and therefore requires much patience, and, perhaps, that thing we so often try to escape: routine. I know that there is an unspeakable beauty that can come in the form of rhythm and repetition, yet waiting for it can sometimes be trying. We fall victim to this young adult onset allergy to practiced cycles and regularity, forgetting that they are just another form or the reliability that we all seek. Such perfunctory melodies in essence are the fruits of hope, yet with a guarantee. Plus, there are nuanced perspectives to be found in the unchanging. It is in these subtleties that we find belonging.

"the final goal of the pursuit of knowledge is to be able say that we know nothing, and be sure of it"

Achieving a consistently balanced life is particularly challenging, as it is a half blind endeavor. We are driving a car in which we can only use the rear view mirror to see; we rely on where we have been to try to get us to where we want to go. Making many turns, driving recklessly can be quite dangerous. Staying perfectly straight, however, will almost certainly lead to total ruin. Mistakes are our friends. And we have a powerful ally in all this craziness: time. This seems to be the way time heals things, by pardoning them. It certainly seems true that time brings wisdom. Sometimes it seems ironic and cruel that with wisdom inevitably comes a more acute knowledge of how little we really know. As if the final goal of the pursuit of knowledge is to be able say that we know nothing, and be sure of it.

Life is more humbling and unsympathetic than college was. The beautiful shine of the polished trademark of that six-digit education tarnishes— which I don’t think is a bad thing. Maybe forgetting the things that tell us what we are supposed to be, to become, will allow us to find out who we really are.  Yet who am I to postulate about anything? I have nothing to contribute other than my own wandering experience. As of now, I know very little, and hopefully, with time, I will know even less.

- Will Martin

Illustration by Gustaf von Arbin 

Photo by Will Martin 

Read the rest of the articles in the October edition of LATTICE here.

Working Harder...Or Not At All? 

I recently had a chat with a honcho of a major cable network. As a big-business supervisor, the businesswoman in question said that she does everything she can to promote flexibility in her workplace. The problem? Everyone doesn’t take advantage of it. She didn’t see fathers working from home, just like younger, childless employees seldom took advantage of the available policies. It was the mothers at the company who most often called in from afar. According to my conversation partner, this caused a lot of resentment. The general attitude was that those who were in the office had to “pick up the slack” for those mothers who chose to work from home. And here is where the problem lies. It seems as though people have a hard time believing that when you work from home, you are actually working.

A September 12 Business Week blog by Lauren Young, entitled, “I’m Not Off: I’m Working At Home Today” brings up this very issue. Young belongs to the category of mothers who take advantage of flexible workplace policies. And she is faced with skepticism, both in the office and out, about what she is actually doing on her work-from-home days. She writes that, “Both of my mothers (I’m the product of divorced, remarried parents) love to call me on the day I am working at home and ask what I’m doing on my ‘day off.’ Ditto for my in-laws and friends.” What’s worse, when she wanted to switch her work-at-home day from Wednesday to Friday, her manager asked, “’So, Friday will be your day off?’”

What are people actually doing when they work from home and how true is the myth that they’re not doing much?

Young claims that she gets more done on her at-home days than when she is the office since there is no one around to bother her. A banker friend of mine agrees. He frequently works from home when he is feeling particularly stressed and needs to get some interruption-free work time. Even big hitters chime in. The Director of the MoMA, Glenn Lowry , told us in an interview that when he really needs to get something important written, he does it from home. When you think about it, it makes sense. In a bustling office, the presence of colleagues provides plenty of distractions. From the fact that I’ve heard several friends discuss their office-wide Scrabulous tournaments, it seems reasonable to think that solitary confinement at home might just prove more productive.

From what we’ve heard from Gen Yers, working from home is only likely to become more popular in the future. And, according to our interviews— and as my banker friend and Lowry’s examples show — it won’t just be mothers taking advantage of the option. If you’re an employer, take note: across the five countries where we conducted our interviews, young men were as likely as young women to say they were looking for flexible workplaces that promote working from home.

But less time in the office means less water cooler talk, less impromptu meetings, less shared lunches. And so, the real question isn’t what’s being accomplished at home, but how an upswing in working from home will change the work culture at large?

- Astri

Photo by dr. jd on Flickr under Creative Commons License. 

The third edition of LATTICE, The Lattice Group's online journal, is now up and ready for your perusal. This edition is VERY exciting, with seven diverse writers and one ridiculously talented illustrator.

Check it out here.

The U.S. and Time-Poverty

I recently came across an interesting article by sociologists Thomas DiPrete and Ellen Verbakel: “Non-Working Time, Income Inequality, and Quality of Life Comparisons: The Case of the U.S. vs. the Netherlands.”

In it, the authors compare the U.S. and the Netherlands (you already knew that), and argue that ”reasonable estimates of the contribution to well-being from non-market activities such as the raising of children or longer vacations can overturn claims in the literature that the U.S. offers greater well-being to more of its citizens than do western European countries.”

"Comparisons between the U.S. and western Europe show that inequality is greater in the U.S. but that average GDP per capita is also greater in the U.S., and most Americans have higher standards of living than do western Europeans at comparable locations in their national income distributions. What is less well- known is that (depending on the country) much of or even the entire gap arises from differences in the level of working hours in the U.S. and in Western Europe."

If you don’t speak socio-babble, basically these sociologists tried to prove empirically that the wealth we pride ourselves on having here in the good ol’ US of A is hard-earned— basically, we have more material goodies becasause we work more than our European brethren, not because our economic system somehow works better. The authors make the (apparently quantifiable) moral claim, however, that one’s well-being has as a lot to do with the amount of time one has, not simply how much bling.

The article essentially asks the question: what makes us happy? In addition to having pretty things, the authors argue that free time is a necessary component.  Since they're academics, they back this up with an academic reference, instead of common sense:

"In 1943, the psychologist Abraham Maslow asserted that humans possessed a 'hierarchy of needs,' that higher needs were not activated until lower order needs were satisfied, and that what he termed the highest need, the need for 'self-actualization' was often not accomplished through work. Its satisfaction, in fact, often required the foregoing of income for 'leisure' which would allow cultural and artistic pursuits. This presumption that 'self-actualization' was often best obtained outside of work led to the prediction that average hours of work would diminish as societies became wealthier."

This prediction was borne out in western Europe, but not in the U.S. Turns out, Americans, at least compared to the Dutch, suffer from mild to acute time-deprivation: while the average Dutch job requires 1367 hours a year, the average American job requires 1824. In addition, the average full-time worker in the Netherlands has 7.6 weeks a year of holiday and vacation time, while the U.S. average is 3.9 weeks a year. 

If Americans value "self-actualization" as much as the next guy-- and I can't see any reason why we wouldn't-- why do we work so much? Do we just not know any better? If that's the case, and it very well may be, more comparative accounts like this one surely couldn't hurt. 

- Vetta 

"squared clocks" photo by leo reynolds on flickr.com under creative commons license.

What does it mean to do good work? 

Twenty-six days in New York City –I’m new! It’s scary!—and I’m edging toward desperation. Rent is due in 15 days, even though I just paid rent 15 days ago, and I need a part-time job. Shockingly, being a graduate student and Lattice Grouper pays but a pittance.

Previously, I had hopes of finding challenging, rewarding, meaningful work. Today, I just want a job, any job. My newest disposition runs exactly contrary to the wisdom found in The Craftsman, the first installment of an ambitious trilogy by sociologist Richard Sennett. Amidst a lot of name-dropping— Plato! Cellini! Stradivari! —and mind-numbing, selective historical details, Sennett addresses two very important questions: what constitutes good work in our society? And, more importantly, why doesn’t anybody care anymore?

Sennett recounts numerous tales of craftsmen, men and women who dedicated their lives to perfecting their craft. This was achieved through discipline and repetition, over a long period of time, and with the guidance of someone more knowledgeable. Goldsmiths and artisans come immediately to mind, sure; but Sennett claims that craftsmanship can be applied to almost any job— marketing, architecture, parenthood, to name a few— provided that the worker abides by the above guidelines (essentially, slow, dedicated learning). The rewards of craftsmanship are great: pride in one’s work and one’s self, as well as quality goods and services for others. The problem, according to Sennett, is that the new economy makes the pursuit of craftsmanship very difficult.

Today’s companies are organized around a fast-paced, globalized economy. New, skilled, shiny workers are in, the oldies and company loyalty is out. As we’ve frequently heard and recounted here at The Lattice Group, the idea of working for one company for 30 years is no longer fathomable for the new generation of workers. Most of us —the new, skilled, shiny workers— are totally fine with that: who wants to be in the same place for 30 years?! We want to travel, and grow, and take on new experiences!

New experiences are well and good, but there are pitfalls to this new system. Last week I blogged about one of these pitfalls: the fact that workers’ safety nets are still employer-based, even though most of us don’t stay with one employer for very long, and a third of us don’t really have an employer, per se. Sennett identifies another problem of the new economy:  today work is emphatically tied to long hours, rather than quality— or craft, if you will. Sennett claims, and I would tend to agree, that few people believe their employers will reward them for doing good work for its own sake. Today’s company mantra, driven by the competitive, global economy, is “just get it done.” This, combined with the inflexible 9 to 5 work culture, leaves little room for collaboration, innovation, or craftsmanship.

Furthermore, the new economy doesn’t reward work in the same way as before. Supposedly, companies reward employees who work hard, at all levels. However, today, “the wealth share of middle-level employees has stagnated over the past generation, even as the wealth of those at the top has ballooned. One measure is that in 1974 the CEO of a large American corporation earned about thirty times as much as a median-level employee, whereas in 2004 the CEO earned 350 to 400 times as much.”

Most of us new, ambitious workers hardly think about this hallowing out of the middle. We’re naive and cocky enough to think that we’re going to be one of the very few racking in the big bucks at the top. In fact, the job-hop trend is probably tied to a feeling that there is greater opportunity somewhere else. This may not be good for employees— most of us are going to end up in the middle —or for employers either. When the internet bubble burst in the 90s, previously gung-ho employees quickly jumped ship. These employees didn’t buckle down and take pay cuts to help their companies survive. And why should they have? The companies didn’t invest much in them or encourage them to do good work for its own sake— profits, quick and plentiful, were the order of the day.

Sennett reminds us that discipline, routine, and time are necessary to do good work: “for good craftsmen, routines are not static; they evolve, the craftsmen improve.” Yet, employers often overlook this opportunity to invest in their employees and encourage craftsmanship. Our whirlwind culture, economy, and lifestyles don’t help, either.

There are many problems associated with the new economy; academics, journalists, pundits, and friends rarely hesitate to tell us about them. On the bright side, and why I found The Craftsman inspiring, actually, is that Sennett believes all human beings have the capacity to do good work. “Ability” rarely comes from natural genius. Far more often it comes from sustained hard-work and dedication, which is certainly something we’re all capable of. But sometimes we’re just trying to make rent.

Do you consider yourself a craftsman? (Or, should I say, craftsperson?) Why or why not?

-  Vetta

"craftsman" photo by Roby72 on flickr.com under Creative Commons License.  

Last week, Vetta and I were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to speak to some of the most talented young women out there: Glamour Magazine’s Top Ten College Women of 2008. Their press release reads:

“Glamour’s Top 10 College Women competition has recognized 10 students from across the country for the past 51 years for their campus leadership, scholastic achievement, community involvement, and their unique, inspiring goals.”

This years lineup was incredibly impressive, including a celebrated pianist, a cancer researcher, a top-performer in the Airforce Academy…the list goes on. Upon winning the prestigious award, the ten young women were polled to find out what topic they were most interested in hearing about during their celebratory visit to New York. Lo and behold, to our GREAT excitement, these ten future leaders said they wanted to hear about work-life balance! Smart ladies. And so, Vetta and I were invited to be on a panel together with some very impressive professional superstars (in whose presence we were wholly humbled) in an afternoon discussion that took place in the Glamour office at 4 Times Square. For those Top Ten College Women, we took the opportunity to share our Top Ten Lattice Lessons Learned, as well as what we think they should do when they “rule the world” in their respective fields. 

Top Ten Lattice Lessons Learned (for GLAMOUR)

1. Do what you love. 

You may be good at a lot of things. You certainly could do a lot of things. But the really successful
people we’ve met reached the peaks of their professions because they were truly passionate about
their work-- whether it was playing music, publishing or banking (it’s true, some people love bank-
ing). So, ask yourself: is this what I really want to do even if I never get fame or a fat paycheck? And
guess what? More and more, young people are saying their dream job is where their heart is, not
necessarily where the money is.

2. Figure out what you stand for, and stand by that. 

Successful professionals told us over and over again: they are looking for people who are willing to
stand up for what they believe in, even if the boss doesn’t believe the same thing. Believe it or not,
sometimes it is better to be a nay-sayer than a yay-sayer.  Having a strong sense of self—an inner com-
pass, if you will—encourages others to have confidence in you and your decisions. 

3. Just ask! 

Many times we’ve heard people say they want more from their jobs: more flexible hours, more vacation time, more moola. Turns out, they’ve never asked. Satisfied workers, on the other hand, coolly tell us that they made their needs known early on and worked out a mutually beneficial arrangement with their employers. Ladies, you are particularly bad at negotiating your salary. Since raises are based on your starting salary, this is part of the reason men end up making exponentially more. So don't be afraid of asking for what you deserve—and then some!

4. Envision your career as a "corporate lattice" rather than a "corporate ladder."

We were told by many business leaders that they expect a great change in how careers are built in
the future, with careers beginning to look more like lattices than ladders. Our generation will move
between industries and fields. We might take a year or two off only to enter the working world in full
force again. Flexibility is the mantra of the future, whether it has to do with working from home or
moving between jobs.

5. Gender discrimination goes both ways.

The gender discrimination discussion typically revolves around challenges women face in the work-
place. That is certainly important and we have a a lot of work to do in that department. But equally
important is the fact that men face challenges if they want to succeed in the workplace and fulfill their
personal and family responsibilities. Both men and women deserve the chance to have successful pri-
vate and professional lives. 

6. Pick a partner, carefully. 

We’re all for passion and great sex. But will your partner be willing to make sacrifices for you and your
career? Share in responsibilities of home and kids – if you want them? Over and over again, success-
ful professionals have told us that their ability to balance work and family life boils down to picking
a good life partner. If they didn’t have a spouse who shared family and home responsibilities (as well
as larger perspectives on life), they couldn’t have made it as far as they did. This is especially true for women. So, don’t be afraid to ask the right questions of the person you are involved with. “Would you
prefer a stay-at-home wife?” might not make for the most romantic conversation, but believe us, you’ll
be glad you asked.

7. Being detail-oriented is good, perfectionism is bad.

We were frequently told that men and women work differently, the primary difference being that
women are detail-oriented while men think more about the larger picture. What this ultimately comes
down to is that women spend a lot more time obsessively perfecting the work they do, while men don’t
worry as much. What’s more, men don’t appear to take critique as personally as women do and they
are generally more confident in their own abilities.  One young mother told us that every morning
before going to work she tells herself to “think like a man.” If “thinking like a man” means being confi-
dent and not letting petty mistakes get you down, that may not be bad advice. 

8. Daycare is not the devil. 

Some of the practical details related to raising children can be outsourced to competent help, like a
daycare center or certified childcare provider. In Europe, the general view of daycare is very positive.
In fact, our European interviewees said they thought at least some form of daycare is necessary to so-
cialize children. The bottom line: You’re not necessarily a bad parent because you’re a working parent,
just like you are not necessarily a good parent because you’re a stay-at-home parent.

9. Live close to where you work. 

It’s simple: a long commute eats into either your productive work hours or your personal time. Live
close to work. Better yet, walk, bike or take public transportation to get there. The earth, your mental
health, and your waistline will thank you.

10. Vacation: you need it. 

Nowadays, we work harder and longer than ever. Even though companies in the United States don’t
have to give you any time off by law, look for an employer that will offer you significant vacation, or
muster the guts to ask for it up front (remember Lesson 3?!). Vacation is a well-deserved and well-
needed time to re-charge your batteries, gain some new perspectives and return to work more produc-
tive and effective than ever. It’s good for you, and it’s good for your employer.

Top 5 Things to Do When You Rule the World 

1. Mentor 

When you get to the top, be a mentor for other young women and beat the culture of cat-fights and
sharp elbows. Men have understood the value of cultivating business networks for a very long time. It
is time women caught up.

2. Reward results over facetime.

Work toward a culture that rewards what you produce over the amount of time you spend in the
office. 

3. Strive toward flexibility.

Encourage flexible hours at your workplace, allow people to work from home if they want to, and get
out of the habit of frowning on so-called “resume gaps.” Ask instead what that person learned during
their time away from the workforce. You might be surprised. 

4. Treat everyone as a potential creative worker with something to contribute.

Examine how your company or workplace is structured. Do you have horizontal or vertical hierarchies? Are people from all levels able to contribute creatively? If not, think about ways to encourage input from all levels. Their commitment and your bottom line are sure to skyrocket.

5. Advocate.

Work towards progressive policies at both a company and national level. Start by advocating for paid maternity and paternity leave, paid sick leave, on-site childcare, universal public preschool, and more vacation time.

To apply for Glamour's Top Ten College Women 2009, go here.

- Astri 

Illustration by Gustaf von Arbin 

Just a year ago, when someone told me they were a “freelancer” I would smile politely and feign interest in the groundbreaking novel slash interpretive dance they were working on. Fascinating, I'm sure. But I also knew that they probably spent most of their time mixing mojitos and serving grilled branzino to people with real jobs— you know, the kind with health benefits and a retirement plan. The kind of job that I was going to have when I graduated from college and moved to New York City.

Well, I just moved to New York City. And after interviewing dozens of people with “real” jobs, I reluctantly absorbed the most common and feverishly delivered piece of advice: do what you love. For me, that’s sociology and non-profiteering à la The Lattice Group. Now, against my better judgment, I am just another 20-something living in New York City with big dreams and no stable income or benefits (and I’m not even qualified to mix mojitos).    

I am not alone, however; and now I have a leader.  Her name is Sara Horowitz, and she is the founder of Freelancers Union. I had come across Freelancers Union a while back, but it wasn’t until hearing the new gospel in person that it really sunk in. Horowitz was a keynote speaker at the American Sociological Association’s Annual Meeting (think: 5,000 PhDs and lots of shoulder pads). She was magical— or, rather, biblical.

Horowitz started out by recounting Exodus, the bestselling tale of how Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and to the Mountain of God. See, the Israelites were working for this really mean boss (the Pharaoh), who paid them no money or benefits (slavery). So they peaced out. Horowitz argues that this “exodus” was actually the very first strike, and that Moses was just a damn good union leader.

Despite this fascinating revelation, unions remain terribly and increasingly unpopular in the United States. Only 12 percent of workers in the U.S. belong to a union—even though unionized workers earn 28 percent more than non-unionized workers, according to The New York Times’ lone remaining labor reporter, Steven Greenhouse. Unions are still a force to be reckoned with in Europe, however; twenty-six percent of workers are unionized on average across the EU. The Scandinavian countries have a much higher rate of union membership—a mind-blowing 78 percent of workers in Sweden belong to a union.

While union membership in the U.S. conjures up images of bristly, overall-clad men toiling in the mines, Scandinavian countries have been very successful in unionizing women and service sector employees—two increasingly large segments of the working population. For example, union density in Sweden approaches three-quarters of all workers in the finance, insurance, real estate, and business services sector; in the United States, only 2 percent of workers in that sector are unionized.

Despite corporate opposition to unions (they want to pay you as little as possible— duh), workers collectively asking for benefits and higher wages works. In the U.S., 78 percent of unionzed private sector employees had employer-provided health insurance, compared with only 49 percent of nonunion workers. Unionzed workers are also more likely to have retirement benefits, in addition to higher wages (see AFL-CIO website).

But all of this is besides the point, says Horowitz. The decline of unions is troubling, but the bigger problem for workers today is that our safety net system is desperately outdated. Currently, benefits like health insurance and pension plans are employer-based. You must be employed by a single employer for a significant period of time to receive these benefits. But workers are no longer employer-based. We’re freelancers, consultants, small business-owners, frantic work-life balance crusaders. With 18 percent of workers employed part-time and 10 percent self-employed, almost a third of the work force is not eligible for employer-based benefits. Even if we have a single employer (“the man”), we probably won’t have the same one for very long. In our fast-paced economy, there’s always a new, better, more exciting opportunity elsewhere. Yet, changing jobs or striking out on your own is oh-so-much less enticing if you know that doings so will jeopardize your health insurance or ability to finance the Florida retirement home of your dreams.

Let’s face it: long-term employment is a thing of the past. Employer-based benefits are equally obsolete. What we need is a worker-based safety net. If you work, you should be able to have health care, a retirement plan, and long-term disability insurance. This is not rocket science. But that doesn’t mean Horowitz’s accomplishments are any less impressive. To date, Freelancers Union has 77,000 members and 19,000 receive benefits that would otherwise be out of reach.

You can join Freelancers Union here. Most of us are too self absorbed to buy into the old “workers of the world, unite!” shtick. But even if you have a “real” job now, you may be and independent worker in the future— so it’s in your best interest to support one of the only movements out there that advocates for the rights of the independent workforce.

To support traditional unions (which represent 16 million workers) write to your representative and support the Employee Free Choice Act. Because, yep, joining a union is still a hassle.

- Vetta

"netting" photo by Oberazzi in flickr.com under creative commons license.  

To wed or not to wed, that is the Gen Y question.

What does one do on humid New York Sundays but lounge in Central Park and pour over the New York Times wedding announcements? Why? First of all, because it’s hilarious. If you share my weekend interest, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If this is new to you, I think it’ll suffice to say: senior picture, but worse. But no matter the shoddy photography, there is a great deal of prestige involved in getting you and your fiancé(e) into the back pages. If you happen to be so lucky you will be shouting out your commitment to one another (and to New York’s high society) to thousands upon thousands. “We’re getting hitched!!!”

The Big White Wedding tradition is an alarming spectacle at this point. The Sunday Times is just the very beginning of it. Then there are the hundreds of wedding guests and the thousands of dollars it now seems to take to throw a wedding worthy of the name. Don’t forget the white designer dress, no matter if you’re edging on thirty and have lived with your mate for several years already. I even read recently that brides are throwing plastic surgery parties to perfect their brides maids’ appearance for the big day. No matter how you look at it, wedding madness seems to have hit the great US of A. And so, after yet another morning looking over the forced smiles of the Sunday Times, I started wondering: what does Gen Y really think of marriage?

Turns out, we heard varying perspectives on the importance of marriage as we traveled and interviewed Gen Yers in Spain, France, Sweden, Russia and the USA. (Let me just say that we only interviewed young people in major cities, and since urban youngsters tend to be more liberal than their rural counterparts, please keep that in mind as you read on.) For the purpose of this blog, I will take a closer look at the answers we were given in Spain and France vs. the United States. After all, in both Spain and France Gen Yers were the most against tying the knot, while Gen Yers in the United States were the most solidly pro.

Michelle, 27, who works as the Director of a Study Abroad Program in Paris, says: “I'm not against getting married, it's just that for me it doesn't represent anything. I'm not religious, I don't believe in God, so for me the religious part doesn't mean anything.” She goes on to dispel the myth that every girl, no matter nationality, desires a Big White Wedding: “It's not my dream. I don't dream about a very beautiful marriage or a beautiful dress. I dream about family, but not about marriage…it's a waste of time and a waste of money.” She hurries to add that she doesn't think she is the norm. “I think all my friends want to get married…I think it's tradition. Even if most of my friends never go to church during the year, they all want to get married in the church.” Actually, from what we gathered, Michelle isn’t as lonely as she thinks in the no-marriage camp. Marguerite, 28, a young and ambitious literature professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, feels strongly about the issue: “I oppose marriage, I really do.”

Fréderic, 22, who attends the prestigious Sciences Po in Paris, doesn’t want to get married either. “I don’t think I believe in marriage as an institution,” he says. Instead, he would consider the Pacs, which is an increasingly popular form of civil union in France that provides comparable legal benefits to marriage. “Modern couples are more appealing to this kind of commitment which is more flexible,” he says. Even though he says it is more flexible, Fréderic insists that the Pacs is in fact proving to be as durable as a traditional marriage: “Back when it was passed, right wing people said that it would be like a tissue marriage, because people would break up and it would be a very fragile institution. But now 18% of Pacs have been broken to date and the divorce rate is 13%. So, it is not a huge difference, right?” Maybe. But Pierre, 31, who works as a legal counsel in a scientific research center and asserts that he doesn’t want to marry because he fears commitment, says he would consider the Pacs because, “for me it's not a commitment, you can break it as easily as you want.”

Spaniards follow straight at the French heels when it comes to anti-marriage sentiments. Marco, who is 21 years old and studies Philosophy in Madrid, says: “I don’t think of the possibility to marry. One thing is a stable relationship, but another is to introduce the state into the private life of individuals. Which is what I feel marriage is. Even though my parents are married and most of the world is married.” Juan, 25, a media studies student in Madrid, agrees: “I don't believe in matrimony. I believe in love, but I don't believe in the church wedding and spending money on the wedding…civil marriage? Definitely.”

From these youngsters’ answers, the rejection of marriage seems to be a lot about the opposition to an age-old institution tied to the church rather than a resistance to the idea of life-long partnership. Spain and France are, after all, the places we expected to hear the most traditional answers due to their deep-rooted Catholic history. Perhaps the strength of the history explains the strength of the resistance.

When not aggressively opposed, the French and Spaniards are tepid at best. Anna, 25, who works as a translator in Madrid and grew up in Malaga, says a lukewarm “maybe” to marriage. Anton, a 20-year old law student at the Sorbonne in Paris chimes in: “I don't know. Maybe. It’s not important.” These answers are a whole lot less definite than what we heard from the Americans we interviewed who answered YES without a doubt, every time. One 22-year old college senior studying medical anthropology sums up the American Gen Y perspective on marriage as told to us over and over again: “Yes (I plan on getting married) I just couldn't really see it any other way.”

Why don’t the French and Spaniards desire marriage while the Americans apparently still do? Ciara, 25, who studies business administration in Madrid, hints at an idea: “It's new, but now people from all ages are getting divorced. I don't think it’s religion, I think people nowadays are more and more individual. Before, people were taught that the family was the most important thing. Men work and women take care of the family. Now everyone wants to have their own jobs, travel, have fun. People are less tolerant...” In other words: we’re back to the idea of the self-involved generation that always puts themselves first, perhaps to the detriment of family. Then again, divorce is rampant in the United States as well, but that doesn’t seem to have deterred the wishes of young Americans to step up to the altar. And so, here we come up against all kinds of questions, such as: What does marriage really mean to Gen Yers? Does it mean something different in different countries, or how else can we explain the difference in marriage-desires between Western Europe and the United States? It also brings up the hot-topic of a childless European future. All of this, my friends, will be the stuff of future blogs.

- Astri

Photo of wedding ring by Troy B Thompson on Flickr under Creative Commons License. 

We recently had the good fortune to sit down with Christies Sweden's Chief Representative Birgitta Rydbeck and pick her brain about juggling a high-power career with a full family life. She gave us some unconventional answers. Here is a sneak peak:

"I think you must not forget one reason to why there are fewer women to choose from for the top positions, and this goes for all businesses. The reason is that we, the women, choose to stop at some level. We do not go all the way to the top. It’s a choice we make. It’s not that it’s not open to us. I think that we perhaps feel, ‘why should I give the company all of myself? I have a family.’ Or even if you don’t have a family, you may feel that way. And this feeling, together with the tradition that we have, makes it so that there’s no one who thinks it’s strange for a woman to say, ‘I want to work part-time, or I want to take 18 months of maternity leave.’ Everyone thinks it’s natural if a woman is free like this. We have a choice and we use this choice a lot of the time. I think it’s almost always forgotten in the debate that this is a big reason as to why there are fewer women to appoint to boards or in executive positions. Men aren’t expected to ever take breaks, or work part-time. They are expected to work full-time all their lives.

"I think that this is an advantage that women have, actually. I see more and more women making this kind of choice. But this is never an argument in the debate. I think we are the privileged sex. I really think we are..."

Read the full interview here. 

- Astri 

Sometimes, a peak at your friends' most recent status updates on Facebook can be both entertaining and informative. Today, I saw that one young mother, let us call her "X", whom we interviewed (and whom I subsequently became facebook friends with), had the following status:

"X is: going to two work meetings together with two toddlers...eh...what was the person who invented 'planning days' at daycare thinking?!"

Ah, a glance into the everyday plights of a working parent...

Thanks, Facebook. Now I'm going to do some research about how the Swedish public daycare system works.

- Astri 

When Personal Growth is of Primary Professional Importance

It is a lazy Monday morning. I’m been baking scones and foaming milk while an old friend alternately falls into bouts of giggles over happenings from the weekend and concentrated silences over her textbooks. She is in my kitchen to study for a business school exam while I blog and follow up long-neglected emails. Beside her notebook is her cell phone, which she glances at every couple of minutes in tense anticipation. She is waiting for a call. Last week, she met me for lunch after an interview for a project manager position with a large cable company and today is the day for the verdict. She wants to the job. Why? “Because I want to grow,” she says, blue eyes glittering. The rest of five-person team she would be working with if she lands the position have all been working in management consulting for a little under a decade. “Imagine what I’ll learn just by working with them!” she says, literally drooling at the thought. To her, the most important thing an employer can offer is personal growth potential. How much will she learn? How much will she be encouraged to develop personally? How can her experience at one particular workplace serve as a springboard for her career as a whole?

The desire to see growth opportunities in a position is not unique for my ambitious friend. In fact, we have found that it is a common sentiment particularly among the Swedish Gen Yers we interviewed. When we ask Stina, 24, who was just promoted to Senior Consultant at a global management consulting firm in Stockholm, what she looks for in a job, she says: “A work place with high performing, young, fun colleagues. And a clear trajectory and learning path.” Similarly, Adam, 24, who works at a venture capitalist firm in Stockholm, says he quit his previous job at an ad agency because: “People were not that engaged. They worked from 9-5. At five o’clock they went home, and they didn’t really have a passion for their job.” When we ask him what he likes best about his job now, he answers: “I must say my colleagues. They are a very diverse group. They are fun, they are very engaged, they work hard.”

In other words, talented and driven co-workers who can inspire you and whom you can learn from is a draw. Apparently, so is continued education and training on the job. When we ask Ellen, 22, a medical student specializing in dentistry in Stockholm, what kind of benefits would make an employer attractive to her, she answers: “I would love to have education benefits, such as courses that would specialize me in different areas…I think it is important to me that they put money and effort into their employees and help for the people that work there…And of course how much you can advance in the position that you are hired. Do they have a plan for me? For how I will develop a career there?”  Sara, 25, a first year associate at a prestigious Stockholm law firm, gives us a similar answer: “At this stage of my career, when I was looking around (for jobs), I was looking for education, the opportunity for training (on the job).”

Over and over again I am struck by how far ahead the Swedish interviewees seem to have thought when it comes to their careers, especially compared to their counterparts in France, Spain, Russia and the United States. They had answers to all we asked them: everything from how much parental leave they intended to take, and how they would split domestic responsibilities with their partner, to what they were looking for, specifically, in a job. Of course every interviewee, no matter nationality, mustered some sort of answer to each of our questions— often commenting confusedly that this was the first time they’d thought about these particular issues. What made the Swedish interviews stand out was that the answers seemed so pre-meditated, so thought-out.

Where does it come from, this culture of thinking ahead? Sweden is famously small and homogenous (as Elizabeth Gilbert writes in the international bestseller “Eat, Pray, Love,” if every city has one “word,” one imperative that defines it, Stockholm’s word is “conform”), and sometimes I am tempted to feel as though the Gen Yers inhabiting this Northern European tip have been brainwashed to believe certain basic principals. To streamline, or “conform,” their values, if you will. This may sound rather disturbing, and if you are someone who dislikes the idea of a society where people tend to be more similar than they are different, then Sweden may not be your cup of aquavit (my colleague Vetta commented with wonder, after three months in Sweden, that every Swedish kitchen she had been to had the same kind of basic groceries in the fridge, similar interior decorating styles, at least one Josef Frank fabric...). On the other hand, if you tend to agree with those shared values— such as the importance of lengthy gender-blind parental leaves, a basic standard of living for everyone, free basic as well as higher education, universal healthcare etc— then being all the same may not be all bad. It may simply be all good.

Now, I am sensing that there is a new “shared value” on the rise: the importance of personal growth in the professional world. After all, most of our Swedish Gen Yers referred to it specifically, without our prompting. Furthermore, I read an article in SvD (Swedish daily) yesterday (Sunday, August 10th, 2008) where the political opposition leader and head of the Social Democratic Party, Mona Sahlin, listed “adult education” and “developing professional competency” as the most important political issues this fall. In other words, we haven’t heard the last of it. Call it brainwashing or call it strong shared values, but today’s Swedish Gen Yers have “personal growth” clearly printed on their professional agenda.

- Astri

Photo of Swedish flag in marbles by just.Luc on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Photo of conforming birds by kaydee did on Flickr under Creative Commons License. 

Your trusty friends over at Lattice Headquarters are proud to bring you new golden nuggets of life lessons in the form of in-depth interviews with very accomplished and inspiring professionals. First off, we sat down with one of the most powerful women in the world, Antonia Ax:son Johonson, Chairman of the Board of the Axelson Johnson Group, and talked work and life over a scrumptious summer meal. Also on our interview itinerary was Rosenbad, where the Swedish government has it's seat. There, we visited the office of Mikaela Kumlin Granit, who is a Foreign Policy Advisor to the Swedish Prime Minister . Take a seat in a comfy couch or bring your computer outside and prepare yourself for an interesting read.

Where are they going, the movers and shakers of the future? 

Mimi was 22 when she opted out of her studies at Stockholm University to take a job offer she felt she couldn’t refuse. That was two years ago. She now works as a literary agent at a small agency in Stockholm. Since her work involves representing Swedish authors abroad, Mimi goes on a lot of business trips— which she loves. Already in university, Mimi traveled a great deal. Her favorite part of being a student was, “the joy of discovering the world. Studying overseas twice…it was very meaningful to go abroad and learn in a new environment.” When we ask about her ten-year plan, it also involves exploring a world beyond her own Northern tip, with the committed husband that she hopes to have at that point: “I hope we will be living in New York City or London or Paris. One of the big cities.”

The desire to fly from the national nest is very strong among the Gen Yers we’ve encountered. The urge was particularly strong in Sweden, followed by France, Spain and Russia. Least keen on the abroad perspective were our American interviewees. In fact, very few American Gen Yers we interviewed expressed an explicit desire to live and work abroad. Sites seemed set on the home front, often not far from the places where they had either been raised or educated.

Perhaps the great European abroad-interest ties back to what I wrote in my previous blog , where I mentioned the creation of a European Frontier. After all, with national borders within the European Union practically erased for the purpose of travel and employment, these youngsters are not only dreaming when they voice exotic aspirations; they are simply stepping up to the EU smorgasbord, ready to fill their plates. But that doesn’t necessarily mean European Gen Yers feel restricted to stay in Europe, either. They seem bursting with options. Éric, 22, is a new graduate of Paris Dauphin, where he studied finance. He hopes that, in the future, he “won’t be in France, because I like to travel. I would like to spend some time abroad…London, or Los Angeles, Miami, New York. Maybe in Australia, or Spain. I really, really don’t know.” He seems to feel he has a lot of choices. Like Éric, Elena, 25, who was raised in Málaga but now works in Madrid, says, “I don't have any limits on going anywhere.” Katrin, a stylish 24 year-old working in PR in Stockholm, predicts that in ten years, she will, “probably be in-between geographical places.”

Importantly, however, the Swedes— who were most set on the need for abroad experience by far— do not seem to see their move as permanent. After a couple of years’ foray into the larger world, the majority of them intend to return to their homeland. When asked where she hopes to be in ten years, Tina, a 24 year-old PhD candidate in biology who grew up in a Stockholm suburb, said: “I think I’m back in Stockholm. I hope I will travel a lot with my work in the beginning.” Martina, who is a 25 year-old first-year associate at a prestigious Stockholm law firm, is clear on her intention to both live in Sweden and make partner in ten years. But she doesn’t let her ambitions deter her from a stint away from her home: “I hope that I will have lived abroad for a couple of years, at least,” she says. Similarly, Johan, 25, who just graduated from the Stockholm School of Economics and has a job lined up in management consulting, says that in ten years, “I am back in Sweden after a couple years abroad.”

Among our Russian interviewees, however, the travel bug seems to have a more permanent end-goal, especially among the women. Sasha, a 20 year-old studying logistics in Moscow, is actively looking to move abroad, preferably to Austria. She is also clear on the fact that she is planning to marry a non-Russian, and that her new life abroad will be more than a few years’ change of scenery. One major motivation for her is the fact that she wants to be a working mother, something she thinks is less accepted in Russia: “I think the working conditions are better abroad and, besides, the attitude toward the person that works and doesn’t stay at home is much better.” Similarly, Maria, an astonishingly driven and accomplished 19 year-old Muscovite, who already works as a writer for two popular magazines while studying Philosophy and Culture at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, plans on living abroad for the long haul, with geographical prospects including Montenegro and England. She is careful to add that though she wants to live outside of Russia, she won’t be willing to relocate for a man; the decision will be her own.

What does that leave us with? Americans who want to stay in America, Swedes who want to play on the international arena only to settle down at home in Sweden, Frenchmen and Spaniards who are less clear about whether their travel will be for the long-term or not, and Russians, especially women, who want to move out and stay out. I am certainly no expert, but if I were to make a crude guess from the interviews and my own limited experience in each of these countries, I would say that there is a faint red line to follow:

Americans don’t dream of exploring the world as much as their European counterparts because their country is a kind of world of its own; it is a continent, after all. (And while Russia is equally huge in landmass, most Russian interviewees responded that the only place they would consider living is Moscow, or perhaps St. Petersburg, while America boasts multiple vibrant urban options.) Furthermore, international travel is more expensive and less easily accessible to American youths when compared to their European peers with inter-rail cards and cheap-jet tickets in hand. The America Road Trip is the equivalent youth dream to the European Back-Packing Trip; one stays national, the other goes international.

Swedes are an educated and well to do bunch in general, but their country is small and relatively homogenous, and so the desire to see and experience more than their home country can offer is strong. Their language skills also tend to be exceptional, which means they have a pretty easy time working abroad. Then again, Sweden has one of the most generous welfare systems around, especially when it comes to helping working parents. No wonder, then, that home starts looking attractive again come those childbearing years.

Russia is a remarkably interesting place right now, and it can also be a remarkably lucrative one if you get in right on the business side. On the other hand, though there is a burgeoning middle class, the average quality of life is not yet as high as in other industrial nations. Furthermore, from the interviews we conducted, we gathered that expectations based on traditional gender roles are still strong, which may well influence independent women to test their luck elsewhere. The stereotype of Russians trying to leave the country may be on its way out, but it’s not gone quite yet.

As for Spaniards and Frenchmen, your guess is as good as mine…or theirs; they didn’t seem too certain themselves whether their abroad experience would be permanent or not. The one thing they were certain about is the basic desire to travel.

What does it matter, how these Gen Yers plan to map out their travels, or their moves, abroad? Returning once again to the wisdom of urban thinker and economist Richard Florida, the movement of college-educated Gen Yers is significant as it indicates how the so-called “creative class” will live and work in the future, and, in turn, where new “creative capitals” will develop. In other words, these movers and shakers will determine where on the map it moves and shakes. Sweden seems to be doing something right if it is able to lure its knowledge workers back home. Similarly, America— despite fears to the contrary expressed by Florida— may to be doing something right by keeping them at home in the first place.

- Astri

Photo of airlplane by Shane H on Flickr under Creative Commons License.
Photo of train by kevindooley on Flickr under Creative Commons Licsense. 

Growing up in an age when we are all largely creators as well as consumers of media, Gen Yers are unabashedly accustomed to creating on our own. And with easy and virtually free marketing via the internet, we are equally aware that what we create can get an appreciative audience beyond our friend group, town, country, even. It is perhaps not so surprising then that a whopping number of our interviewees over that past year have told us that their dream is to run a business of their own in the future. The reasons for that are plentiful, and hark back to my previous blog about the Gen Y desire to work for things greater than money, such as self-fulfillment, flexibility, social responsibility and, yes, freedom. But what is surprising is that American Gen Yers were not as keen on starting their own businesses are their European peers.

As a European raised to a large extent in the US in a family that loves America and the American Dream, I have always been told that it is on the fertile soil of the “New World” that people are driven to start ventures of their own and, significantly, that it is also on that side of the Atlantic where you are most likely to have these ventures financed. Europe, on the other hand, has always been described to me as a territory of inflexibility where breaking out on your own is complicated by high taxation and complex regulation. What a surprise it was to me, then, to hear so few of the Americans claim to want to start something on their own. Especially when compared with, frankly, a majority of the Europeans! Either this means young Europeans are big dreamers but not big doers, or that we will see a huge upswing in European entrepreneurship in the future. I cannot claim to know, but the fact is that Europe seems to be fostering its youth to think outside the professional box.

This week the European Championship in Young Entrepreneurships is being held in Stockholm and is featured in an article in Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish daily) today, July 26th. The state-funded Swedish organization Ungt Företagsamhet (Young Entrepreneurship) is organizing the event that features young entrepreneurs from all over Europe. The Finish team is exhibiting interior decorating made with recycled metals while an all girls team from Malta have created a Maltese (the language spoken by the island’s 500, 000 inhabitants) T9 dictionary for mobile phones and are currently in negotiations with mobile operators. The Swedish contribution this year is Henrik Giver’s Condom Boxer. “I think girls like it if you come well-prepared,” the young businessman says of his product, a boxer brief with a special pocket for condoms conveniently located on the front. Also on location in Stockholm are eighty observers from Canada and the United States who are there in anticipation of the first such event of its kind to be held in North America next year. The competition hints at the same thing that our interviews indicated: Europe appears ahead of American in encouraging young entrepreneurship.

The US is a pioneer society whose guiding words are freedom and opportunity. In the previous centuries, Europeans flooded American shores to create new lives for themselves, and new business ventures. Now, Europe is in many ways driving a pioneer campaign of its own: that of the European Union. European citizens have the option to study and work in over twenty countries. Meanwhile, America continues to make work vias all the more elusive even to high-skilled applicants. As Richard Florida warns in "The Flight of the Creative Class," American success is largely built on the historic ability to attract and cultivate foreign talent, and now, as the economy becomes increasingly global and so-called "creative capitals" spring up in new places on the map, that talent seems to be looking elsewhere. Perhaps it is time to speak of a European frontier? 

- Astri 

Read the full article in SVD here.

Photo by Giampaolo Squarcina on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Established Professions vs. Laissez-faire Career Progression

“Work” makes up a pretty hefty part of the “work-life” equation. It’s true, I did the math.
There are 168 hours in a week. If you follow the doctor’s orders and sleep 8 hours a day, that leaves you with 112 conscious hours a week. Oh, the possibilities! Let’s say you work a 9 to 5, and actually leave at 5. You’re middle-of-the-road superficial so, according to TIME’s “One Day in America,” it takes you 24 minutes to groom yourself for work (more if you’re a woman; that second coat of mascara doesn’t apply itself). You spend 25 minutes commuting (34.1 minutes if you live in New York City, 20.4 minutes if you live in Anchorage, Alaska). That’s about 45 hours a week of work-centric activity. Which is— drum roll, please —a full 40 percent of the time you spend awake every week. If you work 50 hours a week, that’s 50 percent of your waking hours. Eighty-hour work weeks? That’s a whopping 71 percent.

It’s no wonder, then, that Generation Yers are concerned— panicked, even —about what career to choose. When we asked over 100 students and young professionals what their dream jobs were, we got a plethora of responses. Everything from engineer d’affaires (“it’s, uh, how you say, like a businessman engineer”) to a professional dancer; from a columnist for The New Yorker (quite a lot of those, actually; good luck with that) to the President’s Chief of Staff.

Of the people we interviewed, the least stressed Gen Yers seem to be the ones going into well-established professions (doctors, lawyers, engineers). You have a path, you have a purpose, you know that there’s a paycheck at the end of the rainbow and health care, too. Our future engineer d’affaires, for example, is Philippe, a strikingly handsome 22-year-old Parisian. He studies— you guessed it —engineering at Institut Supérieur d'Electronique de Paris (ISEP). He’s also a sales manager at Junior ISEP, a consulting company run entirely by ISEP students. Philippe appears ready to climb a possibly long, but surely fruitful, career ladder. And, thanks to Junior ISEP, he already gets to do what he wants to do in life.

In France, students choose “majors” in high school, after which they have to go to preparatory schools for even more specialization if they want to go to a Grande École— and who doesn’t like the sound of that? The French higher education system, like most in Europe, is far more specialized than the American system. But even if you’re an American studying liberal arts— unspecialized by design —you can still choose a well-traversed professional path.

Peyton, a junior at a New England liberal arts school, majored in Philosophy and sees law school as a “natural progression.” His dad is a lawyer, but he says he wants to be a lawyer despite his father’s influence: “he practiced the worst law you can practice: bankruptcy law. He was good at it, but I don’t think it was as fulfilling as he wanted it to be.” As Astri discussed in her last blog, Gen Yers seek fulfillment from their employment (and rightfully so, since they may dedicate up to 70 percent of their lives to it). Ergo, no boring bankruptcy law for Peyton. He’s looking forward to being an entertainment lawyer “without any moral conundrums, who can sleep at night and do really interesting, absorbing work with people in Hollywood and actors on Broadway.”  

Unlike Phillipe and Peyton, however, a great many of our interviewees didn’t have clear career ambitions yet, and some were actively trying to avoid traditional paths. Ryan, a graduating senior at an “elite” US college, would prefer, in fact, to aggressively traverse roads much less traveled as a competitive mountain biker— his true passion. But Ryan feels others might look down on him for choosing athletics, and he wants to put his Geography degree to work as well: “I find myself struggling at times about what I should do after college versus what I want to do. And how to best match those up.”

Lucky for Ryan, he’s living in a wondrous wireless world. A few months after our interview, Ryan wrote me an email to report that he landed a job with a wind energy development company. “Aside from being fun work directly related to the Geography major, the job is mobile, so I can take it anywhere I go as long as I can get an internet connection.  It's offered me the chance to travel all over the place and devote a bunch of time to training for this race season.” So it appears Ryan hit the post-grad jackpot.

Ryan's got it all. For now. The company he works for is on the verge of selling to a larger European owner, so Ryan isn’t really sure how long he'll get to keep his job. In several ways, Ryan's story exemplifies both the possibilities and the drawbacks of today's world. We are living in the information age and with that comes a delightful assortment of innovations and possibilities. But some sociologists also refer to this period as “the risk society.” In The Consequences of Modernity theorist extraordinaire Anthony Giddens argues “modernity…brings uncertainty to the very mode of existence.” A little dramatic, sure, but it rings true, doesn't it? Will my job be there next month? Will a faceless multi-national take over? How does the internet work, anyway (tubes, anyone?)?

And then there is personal uncertainty. Which for self-absorbed people like myself, is even worse. Where should I live? Does my first job matter? And, my all-time favorite: What should I really do with my life?

At the time of our interview, Catherine, one of those gorgeous hipster-chic types (damn them!), was just weeks from college graduation. Her plan? “For right now, just something that pays my rent and food and lets me live in NYC for a little, while I figure out the rest of my life.” I really hope she figures it out. If not, there’s always law school.   

- Vetta

ladder photo by squishy, tubes photo by  bithead on flickr.com under creative commons license.  

also, in case i did the math wrong: please don't judge.  

 We’ve insisted before that Gen Y wants to work for more than money. Now it is time to give you some backing to our claims.

While interviewing over 100 young people in five countries (USA, Spain, France, Sweden and Russia), we have found that many Gen Yers who are in the professional world staring at excel spreadsheets are actually longing for creative jobs or careers for the common good. José, a 29 year-old Madrileño who works for a large European telecom company, begins by telling us he is reasonably happy in his position. The work environment is friendly. He can’t complain about the pay. But as José becomes increasingly comfortable with us and our prodding questions, his true sentiments come out: “really, to be honest with myself, I'm not passionate about it…I would prefer of course to negotiate peace in the Middle East than a contract for my company.” This may sound like youthful blasé, but when we ask him what his dream job is, he blushes and says, “something that has some social impact.” Maybe it doesn’t have to be bringing peace to the Middle East, as long as it is, “something that helps people, which is not what I am doing now.”

Jack, a 23 year-old from Cambridge, MA, has a father who “never did anything that he was really passionate about…he's planning to when he retires.” Jack himself seems to dread a similar fate. While he works as a research analyst in New York to pay off his college loans, he intends on staying there for max three years. What he really wants to do is be a journalist and get into the independent music scene. Katie, a fiercely sharp 25-year old from Manhattan, realized her prestigious investment-banking job was a “huge mistake” after the first day: “I just didn’t want to stare at a computer all day.” She quit and took an enormous pay cut to work on documentary films because it allows her creative freedom and the ability to “have control of my time.”

Many students expressed a similar desire to find work after university that gives them more than a good paycheck. Frederic, who studies public policy at the prestigious Sciences Politiques in Paris, wants, “an employer who could bring some sense into my life. I want to feel as though I am serving the common good, or being useful in some way.” He adds that he doesn’t think he is alone in feeling like this. According to Frederic, there is a “big trend in the workplace” of employers finding ways to encourage public service. “That can mean allowing them (employees) to take some days off to work in charity, to go on some humanitarian mission. I know that for now it is pretty uncommon, but I think it is growing and hopefully it will become bigger. That should be encouraged.” Reimer, a 21-year old college senior from Brooklyn, NY, echoes his French peer’s sentiment, “My dream job would be something centered around the new idea of social entrepreneurship. If I could get a job with a business where I could make money as well as help people.”

"they were willing to create a policy, up front, that encouraged that kind of behavior"

Wanting their work to have a larger social impact seems to be one big Gen Y desire. Another is to free themselves from what they see as the shackles of the office. “It would be even better if I could somehow not go into work, physically, every day. If I could work from home for a day or two during the week,” Reimer says. Bill, a 24 year-old Amherst graduate working as an analyst at a small economic consultant firm in New York City, agrees. The number one benefit that would make an employer attractive to him is, “significant allowances for work/life balance: significant vacation time, leniency towards working from home. I would be willing to compromise that for a short period of time for money, but it would have to be a lot of money.” In fact, time and freedom is so important to him that he chose his first job based on it. The principals of his firm broke out from larger firms to create a new culture that would encourage “a significant amount of free time to be outside of the office not doing work-related things.” Among the benefits employees at Bill’s firm enjoy are lengthy vacation, the ability to work from home and a general atmosphere of acceptance when it comes to personal issues that may arise.  “That is one of the things, truthfully, that attracted me to this job; the fact that they were willing to create a policy, up front, that encouraged that kind of behavior.”

Sverker, a 25 year-old soon-to-be graduate of the Stockholm School of Economics, has accepted a job at consulting firm that has made an explicit effort to profile itself as “human.” Sverker was lured by the promise of a good work environment, fewer hours and less travel than at traditional consulting companies. He says that, “more or less everyone at the firm has families with children. They’re able to attract the best people from the good firms because of that. Because you’re able to prioritize your family without having to go down in competence, clients or programs.” Sverker is not looking to have a family any time soon, but he says “it’s better to start at a consulting firm where you feel like you can stay at for a long time…with other places I didn’t feel like that.”  

Sandra, a 23 year-old a college senior from New Jersey, believes there is a huge shift going on in the “system.” She claims that “we’re all becoming a little more creative” and “we’re not all getting corporate jobs.” Instead, Sandra thinks that Gen Yers are “all kind of working for ourselves a bit more.” Why? “I think we’re increasingly being encouraged to go for our dreams and not go for 100,000 dollars a year.” Creativity is big according to Sandra, but so is having a flexible schedule. “I just don’t know a lot of people who are really into the 9 to 5 thing,” Sandra says and suggests that companies would do well to offer their employees more flexible hours. Others, like Greg, a 29 year-old computer programmer from Moscow, didn’t wait to get an offer; he straight out demanded it: “When I started working, I asked for specific things. I work from 8 to 4, without lunch. So I have an eight hour day, after which I leave and engage in my other interests.”

"So you never wonder: What do I want? You always wonder: What can I get?”

We have found that, in general, young Europeans seem to have thought more carefully about what they are looking for in a job, and they also make more demands, than their American peers. As Sheryl, a 20 year-old college junior from Queens, NY, told us, “I have never actually thought about what I wanted from my employer because it is always so assumed that it is in their hands. So you never wonder: What do I want? You always wonder: What can I get?”

If American Gen Yers want as much from their jobs as they appear to, maybe it is time they started asking for it. One major lesson that we have learned by speaking to budding as well as seasoned professionals over the past year is that it’s your own responsibility to ask yourself what you want out of your professional life— in the short-term and in the long-term. Only when you ask yourself the right questions will you find the answer for how to get there.

Wherever “there” is to you, if you belong to Generation Y, our research indicates that it is likely to be a place that offers fulfilling work, social responsibility, creativity, flexibility and independence. We have found that all of those things top Gen Y’s professional wish-list. Maybe it’s not always all about the money after all.  

- Astri

Whiteboard photo by programwitch on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Money photo by TW Collins on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Gen Y's Immense Social Capital 

There is no doubt about it: Generation Y is an exceptionally social generation. Yes, humans are a social species and people have loved to connect with other people throughout the ages. That is no different today than at any other point in history. What is different about Gen Y is that, with the influx of mobile technology and social networking sites dominating the web, we are more likely than ever to keep in touch with the people we meet.

My mother studied in France after high school. That was in the 1960’s, long before cell phones and the Internet were ubiquitous. She keeps in touch with one person from that time, a man that she dated briefly and who has now evolved into a retired bank CEO and intellectual eccentric. Two of my four sisters have spent up to a year living with this man and his family in their Paris apartment while studying abroad. I shared a bottle of wine and a masochistically satisfying crise-de-foie with his wife while I was in Paris interviewing young people for The Lattice Group. Afterwards, he took me on an historical tour of the neighborhood.

My mother’s steadfast relationship with this man from her youth has without doubt yielded countless benefits for her and her family, but this kind of friendship maintenance of yore is also demanding and time-consuming. You have to call each other regularly, send Christmas cards and birthday notes. You have to make an effort to update all of your acquaintances’ many changing numbers and addresses. But what if you lose that over-stuffed address book? The contacts are lost into the abyss. Sure, you can track down your closest friends, but what about the bow-tie-wearing hedge fund manager you shared that fascinating conversation over bouillabaisse with two years ago?

To me, a restless Gen Yer, this sounds like a really big effort. I am terrible at keeping in touch with people in the traditional way, and have gently (or not so gently) let acquaintances drift off my radar at a rapid pace.

Until…Facebook.     

Suddenly, not only my friends and acquaintances, but also interesting people I’ve met once or twice, are at my very fingertips. I don’t even have to call or write them to find out that they have changed numbers, cities, girlfriends, cats. They readily tell me so themselves by changing their status, or the details of their profile. There is no longer any excuse to lose touch with anyone. Now, you won’t even miss out on what used to be reserved for the most intimate of friendship circles. Just last night, Vetta and I put on our detective hats after spotting an unusually shiny ring on a far-away college classmate’s left hand in a Facebook photo album. Within minutes, we knew that she was engaged, where she had been proposed to and what dress she had been wearing when it happened. As for the fellow, he wasn’t in either of our personal networks but through his fiancée’s photos and profile, we could discern that he was a law student, had an annoying tendency to write sappy comments and liked double-stuffed Oreos. That’s good market profiling, right there.

This kind of information is not only handy for late-night stalking; it is a fantastic resource for career-building. Go onto any random person’s Facebook profile (or Myspace or Linked-in or any other equivalent) and you are likely to see that they have literally hundreds of “friends” listed in their personal networks. What a goldmine! Gen Y promises to have enormous social capital to throw around as they begin their professional lives, and that has the potential to translate into equally large business capital. Take our own modest endeavor: The Lattice Group. We post blogs and updates on social networking sites daily. It takes us little time and it reaps generous results: literally thousands of visits to our website and an immeasurable rise in awareness about our project, with hardly any budget or maintenance at all.

Click, click, bingo.

We recently posted a guest blog about Networking by Wharton Business School student and Lattice Group board member Sarah Shaikh. She says that, “a large part of being a successful leader or achieving high goals is recognizing your weaknesses and then finding people to help you patch up those holes— only then can you fully realize your potential!” With the Internet and its proliferation of social networking sites, those hole-patching people will be easier to find.

The larger repercussions of how Gen Y leverages its immense social capital in an increasingly digital world will be interesting to follow. I know I’ll be following it. On Facebook.

- Astri 

Photo on Flickr by luc legay under Creative Commons License.  

Sometimes I feel as though I live in an alternate reality (granted, I am in Sweden right now, so mabye I am). Why this new bout of frustration and feelings of aliendom? An article in the July 14th Times Online entitled, “Equality Laws are now ‘holding women back.’” Apparently, Britain is extending its paid maternity leave from nine months to a year. This is supposed to do a service to women. What it really does, according to Nicola Brewer, the chief executive of Equalities and Human Rights Convention, is make them less attractive candidates for jobs and promotions. If you hire them, chances are they’ll leave anyway, right? Yes, right. A fertile woman with a new ring on her finger might be the last person I’d want to hire if I knew that I had to give her one year of paid leave when she starts having babies. Nothing strange about that.

What is strange is that the law granting lengthy maternity leave is categorized as an “equality law.” There is nothing equal about it. Not only does it, as I think Brewer correctly assesses, disadvantage women by making them less attractive for hire, it discriminates unequivocally against men. And British fathers apparently have the least equal rights in all of Europe. Their two weeks of leave are measly in comparison to the mother’s 52. So, forget “equality laws.” These are laws perpetuating inequality. And, as Brewer notes, extending the exclusive leave for mothers had, “entrenched the assumption that only mothers brought up children and failed to hasten a social revolution where both parents were equally responsible for caring for their family.” A comment by Rory Ridly-Duff underlines the point, “The headline could have read 'family policy holding men back at home', rather than women at work.”

I couldn’t agree more when Brewer argues for fathers to have the same right to paid leave as mothers. Now that is an equality law. And, only when both men and women are likely to go on equally long parental leave will they become equal candidates in the eyes of employers. A truly equal hiring scenario is one where an employer looks at two CVs and doesn’t consider the parental leave issue, since both the male and female candidates may take as much time off.

BINGO! How can this be breaking news? Isn’t that obvious? Granted, even in Sweden, where men and women have equal rights to leave, women tend to take the longer time off. But that is changing. In the interviews that we conducted with young Swedish men they, across the board, claimed to want to split the 18 months of parental leave equally with their spouse when they have children in the future. If word leads to action, our generation of Swedes may finally reach a point where equality laws actually lead to equality.

Again, I realize I have kept my head buried deep in Lattice and Swedish sand for a while now, and may have forgotten how the rest of the world views parenting— or should I just say mothering?

But come on, guys. Wake up and smell the formula.

- Astri

Photo on Flickr by vonbergen.net under Creative Commons License. 

Today's esteemed guest blogger, Sarah Shaikh, may look as sweet as pie, but don't be fooled— this girl is a fierce clandestine networker. We once witnessed her chat up a Class of  '47 alum at a reception: they bonded over his black pug, and minutes later she emerged with a yachting invitation— turns out the man owns a marina— for all six of us, her good-for-nothing friends who had nervously crowded around the cheese plates.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that Sarah happens to be beautiful, brainy, and big-hearted. She holds a BA in Economics from Middlebury College, has worked as a Financial Analyst for Time Inc, serves on the Young Leadership Council of Business Council for Peace, and as a Board Member of The Lattice Group (we know a good thing when we see it). Her latest coup: starting an MBA program at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania this fall. After tackling B-school, Sarah hopes to combine her experience in finance with her interest in the non-profit world to create a more efficient industry. In her spare time —which she swears she has— Sarah enjoys trying new foods, fashion, cooking, running, and staying informed about the world around her.

Read and learn, folks. The lady's a pro.

Network Your Way to the Top

A new poll by The Opinion Research Corporation finds that more than two-thirds of Americans support a law that would guarantee paid vacations for American workers.  

The poll found that 69% of Americans say they would support a paid vacation law, with the largest percentage of respondents favoring a law guaranteeing three weeks vacation or more. Americans under 35 (83%), African-Americans (89%), Hispanic-Americans (82%), and low-income Americans (82%) were the strongest supporters of such a law, as were residents of the Northeast (75%) and the South (72%).  75% of women and 63% of men support a paid vacation law.  74% of families with children support such a law. Every demographic showed majority support for a law, and overall, only 27% of those polled were opposed to a paid vacation law.

In a country as diverse as the United States, it’s painfully rare that a clear majority agrees on anything. That almost 70% of Americans want paid vacation leave should send a pretty clear message to our elected officials. In a democracy, that’s how it’s supposed to work, right? That is, of course, unless special interest groups and businesses matter more to elected officials than the rest of us. More probably, the former have made their views known, through lobbyists and the like. Now, it’s time that everyone else makes their voices heard. You can start by going to www.right2vacation.org.  

My final question is this: who the hell are the 27% of people who oppose paid vacation? Okay, one more question: Why? Dearest Americans, isn't it time to drop the whole “corporate mystique” thing (that whatever is good for business, is good for the individual)? Let's take a page from our European brethern and admit that working so much that you’re in poor mental and physical health is not good for you or for business. I’m as big a fan of the Protestant work ethic as the next guy, but I’m an even bigger believer in “diminished returns.”

- Vetta 

This is a brief add-on to my previous blog about vacation time. In “Time for Time Off” I wrote that many European countries give generous vacation policies for their workers. I highlighted Sweden for all of its bathrobe-toting, beach-lounging, gardening CEOs that leave their boardrooms for over five weeks each year to get some well-deserved down-time. Well, I think it is time that France got a hurrah as well.

Yesterday, my very good friend gave me a ring. He is working in the marketing department of a large corporation in Paris on a short contract. While working for only 8 months at the company, he is given six weeks of vacation. Six! Even I, vacation-lover as I am, was a little flabbergasted. Here is a young fellow working on a short contract, and he cashes in more vacation than most people can hope to get in their most senior years of working.

I know, I know. Many of you are probably getting worked up and ready to write me to say that this is why the French economy is slow and the American one is a powerhouse. Even I can concede that six weeks off on an eight-month contract is a tad exaggerated. But, the fundamental fact remains the same: in Europe even the corporate world recognizes that vacation is a necessary part of being a good employer, and of getting good work back from their employees.

I’m not saying give everyone six weeks off on their first year of working. But I am saying that the fact that employers in the States are not required by law to offer any vacation at all is equally preposterous.

- Astri 

Why Sharing It All Turns Me On

Turn Astri loose in an airport bookstore and you can be sure she will return with the most cringe-worthy publication imaginable: “The Price of Motherhood,” for our initial flight across the Atlantic, “Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office” on our way to Spain, “The Feminine Mistake” for the flight to Moscow. Though it made my deep-seated insecurity that full-frontal feminism is just so unattractive instantly resurface— she was sitting next to me! everyone could see the cover!— I admit that, behind closed doors, I read them all. I even learned a thing or two.

Still, when Astri came back from a recent trip to New York with Caitlin Flanagan’s “To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife” in tow, I figured she had completely lost her mind. She had gone to New York to visit her boyfriend, a beloved friend of mine and the scion of a traditional, Catholic family. Had she decided she was going to give up her own numerous professional ambitions and become the bun-making matron of her secret fantasy? Was I going to have to kill “Bob,” a dear— but ultimately sacrificable— friend?

As usual, Astri recited tid-bits from the damn book every couple of seconds, entirely unable to contain her excitement (why do you Americans throw such lavish weddings?! sexless marriages?? nooooooooooo!!). As usual, I eventually caved and picked up the book— now full of asterisks and underlines and exclamation points— myself.

I’m about half-way through with Flanigan’s supposedly modern manifesto and I must say it’s not all bad. I wholeheartedly appreciate her sobering assessment that a formal white wedding is a contemporary invention, much like Valentine’s Day, where merchants of all sorts (wedding planners, jewelers, that ubiquitous Martha Stewart character) hope to cash in on class confusion. Forget the stretch Hummer limo and ice sculptures! I won’t be duped into debt for “The Philiadelphia Story and The Wedding Singer served up together in one curious and costly buffet.”

As a social observer, Flanigan certainly has her moments— and as a writer, she’s incessantly entertaining— but I would say that her commentary doesn’t apply to the younger generations (me + you = Gen Y). She argues:

“It turns out that the ‘traditional’ marriage, which we’ve all been so happy to annihilate, had some pretty good provisions for many of today’s most stubborn marital problems, such as how to combine work and parenthood, and how to keep the springs of the marriage bed in good working order. What’s interesting about the sex advice given to married women of earlier generations is that it proceeds from the assumption that in a marriage, a happy sex life depends upon orderly and successful housekeeping.”

Flanigan insists that this “orderly and successful housekeeping” is within the rightful purview of the wife, not because men should expect wives to do the housework, but because it’s deplorably unsexy for a man to: “I might be quietly thrilled if my husband decided to forgo his weekly tennis game so that he could alphabetize the spices and scrub the lazy Susan, but I would hardly consider it an erotic gesture,” Flanigan asserts, confident we readers are begrudgingly but affirmatively shaking our collective head.

Speak for yourself, lady! Are you crazy?? If my boyfriend told me he was going to skip watching football for the umpteenth night this week, and scrub anything (I’m not entirely sure what a Lazy Susan is) instead, he would get laid in a heartbeat! Because, above all, work-life balance turns me on. And, since American women still do 80 percent of the childcare and two-thirds of the housework, demonstrating a willingness to do those ultimately time-consuming daily household chores, without pleading or prodding, means that I might eventually get some- work-life balance, that is.

Fellows: in time, your hot body will succumb to gravity and beer (it always does, ladies), and even that charming sense of humor will get old. But the piece of mind that comes from knowing you’ll be willing to share the workload at home will last forever. And that, my friends (Ms. Flanigan, included), is so very, extraordinarily, mind-blowingly hot.  

- Vetta 

 When 20-somethings go neo-traditional...in reverse 

For the next few weeks, my significant other is working as a counselor at a camp for children with disabilities. He spends the days teaching kids— kids who too seldom have the opportunity to just be kids— how to play Texas Hold ‘Em, helps them dress and go to the bathroom, referees cake-baking contests and hockey games, and then plans the next days activities well into the wee morning hours. The man is a bloody saint. And how shall I reward him for his saintliness? Why, talk about him behind his back, of course! You see, at present “Sven” (ha! I wish!) doesn’t have access to the internet, which means that he will likely never read this blog.

Before starting his current job, "Sven," still a student at the youthful-by-European-standards age of 25, was enjoying that glorious period of time perched between the end of the spring semester and the start of a summer job. For him, it was rightfully a time filled with seemingly infinite EUFA2008 football games, early-afternoon wake-up times, and mid-afternoon naps. I, on the other hand, was in a less-enviable place: squeezed between the time I had funding to do fascinating research, and the rapidly approaching time said funding ran out and results were demanded.  I was in panic-mode, and it wasn’t pretty.

The ensuing week is what I naively imagine it must be like when you are the primary breadwinner (traditionally, a man) with a stay at home partner (traditionally, a woman): fantastic, unfair, and miserable— in that order.

“This is fantastic!”

Everyday, I would wake up to the alarm, slide out of bed— pretending to be careful, but secretly hoping he would wake up— and get ready for the working world. Never mind that the “working world” was Lola’s, an underwhelming café barely two blocks away, and that I didn’t have to be there at any particular time. I was going for his pity, and I was going for broke.

“Sven,” kind soul that he is, bought into my act unconditionally. By the time I was out of the shower, he was up, drizzling walnuts and raisins on my yogurt, pouring me a glass of orange juice, and trying to busy himself quietly as I read my email and mindlessly ate the breakfast he made me— the breakfast I could have easily made myself.  

There seemed to be no end to his kindness. He appeared downright pained that he couldn’t do my work for me. For lunch, he made me tasty chevre-tomatoe-whole-grain sandwiches, so I didn’t have to pay for an overpriced one at unimpressive Lola’s. He readily offered back-rubs and did my errands (like return a rain jacket I was thrilled with, until I realized it didn’t have a hood). He praised my work, and insisted that I shouldn’t feel badly for doing less of the practical things; after all, he was home with nothing to do.

“This is bordering on indentured servitude…”

Slowly, I let “Sven” take care of more and more things around the apartment. Eager to do the laundry? Great. Don’t mind taking care of the dishes…again? Fabulous.

Then one day “Sven” called my cell phone, asking when I would be home for dinner. A quick, devious equation ran through my head: I could come home at 5:00, rummage through the root vegetables at the grocery store, help make dinner, and eat by 7:00. Or, I could return to the apartment at 6:45, just in time to put out the plates and silverware before sitting down to a warm, home-cooked meal. My work was “important”— “Sven” had said so himself— and I’m stressed, and he wouldn’t mind. Besides, he’s a much better cook. I’m practically a liability in the kitchen, everyone agrees.

It took all of the willpower and self-shaming entreaties I could muster to pack up my traveling office (beat-up MacBook, ancient cell phone), pay for my seven coffee refills, and meet “Sven” at the grocery store.

“Wow, I'm kind of miserable?”

Sure, I may have felt guilty for letting “Sven” take care of all the day-to-day details, but all that free-time it granted me did wonders for my work, right? Wrong. I felt such pressure to justify how much he was doing at home, that I was actually nearly paralyzed at work. Just when I needed to concentrate most, all I could think about was how I wanted to think about something else. And I couldn’t take a break and actually enjoy his company because, after all, I was supposed to be too busy for anything but work.

What’s more, this little experiment lasted for just a week, and I’m ashamed to admit that even in that short time I was already starting to take “Sven’s” hard work around the house for granted— who has time to notice that the bed is made, the floor is mopped, and the dishes are put away, anyway? If you can turn off the guilt (and it gets easier with each passing day, let alone every passing year) or if you are blissfully ignorant that you should feel guilty, having a stay-at-home partner could be great. But even then, you are subsequently relegated to one sphere, the work sphere, and you better make sure you can deliver there. Personally, I don’t need that kind of pressure.

When the tables were turned and “Sven” went back to work, I can hardly describe how happy I was to have a better half that truly does half of the housework. By then I had given up on Lola’s and was working from the kitchen table. I could have easily gone to the grocery store before “Sven” came back from work, made dinner even. But the idea of lugging potatoes around by myself and peeling them alone in the kitchen, made me want to gouge my eyes out after a long day. Instead, I waited for “Sven” to come home, groped him as we walked to the market, and we made dinner together, in our tiny kitchen, singing along to Lykke Li in our mutually tone-deaf way. I’ll take that kind of partnership over a stay-at-home spouse or a primary breadwinner any day.

- Vetta 

Vacation...Where Can I Get Some? 

A couple of weeks ago The Lattice Group team was speaking to a young gentleman in Moscow who works for East Capital, which describes itself as “a leading independent asset manager specializing in Eastern European financial markets.” East Capital is based in Stockholm, and I recall the surge of exhilaration when the interviewee in question told me as much. Yes, he did work for a Swedish company. And yes, it was very different than working for a Russian company. Offhandedly, he mentioned an emphasis on horizontal hierarchies, parental leave (note: for fathers as well as mothers) and extensive vacation time.

Today, I happened across an article in Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish daily) with a large picture of a sharp-eyed woman and the heading: “Looking East.” It was an article about, low and behold, East Capital and it’s CEO, French-born Karine Hirn (globetrotter, multi-linguist, businesswoman and mother). Hirn founded the company in 1997, and since then it has become the largest company managing funds in Eastern Europe. Very Lattice-like, the two journalists ask: “How do you balance your job as a CEO with your life as a mother of small children?” Her answer? “Sweden is one of the few countries in which one can combine a good family life with an exciting job.” Perhaps, thanks partly to that good old extensive vacation time.

Vetta and I are currently compiling our Lattice Group research while romping in the rustic fields of southern Sweden, seemingly far from the management of any kinds of funds, besides perhaps the daily ice-cream fund. But not so. I met my neighbor in his bathrobe on the way to the harbor for a swim. He is the CEO of a large Nordic recruiting company. I called one of our recent interview subjects, CEO of Christies Sweden, only to find that she was answering her cell phone in a small fishing village a couple of miles away. I sent a business email and received an automated response that said: “I am out of office until 11th of August.” The country is on vacation. Long vacation.

How quickly one forgets. My sister and her husband just left to return to their demanding jobs in New York after an oh-so-short stay in Sweden. This was their vacation for the year. Two weeks, that’s what you get. Two weeks???? When in an American context, discussing job options with college friends (or trying to find a time to see my boyfriend who could not get even a single vacation day), two weeks sounded desirable, enviable even. But now, several weeks into our Swedish sejour, two weeks sounds impossible, barbaric. Isn’t there something in some human rights treaty about that? No? Really…? Oh.

Well, it is in the laws of many European nations. Sweden and France guarantee five weeks minimum- to factory workers and CEOs alike. Even Russia gives you four. And the USA? In America a company doesn’t, by law, have to give you any. Not a single day.

Vacation isn’t all about putting up your feet. It is about re-connecting with family and friends, taking a breather, yes, but also about re-charging your batteries so that you can return to work with new energy. Ready to flex your creative muscles. Ready to give back more to that employer and that market and that larger economy than you could have if you are worked to the bone, haggard and drained and torn between everyone and everything and their demands.

A lot of the high power individuals we have interviewed over the past couple of months have mentioned the importance of knowing what you want and going for it in a strategic, and straight-forward way. Not being afraid of saying what you want. Even of demanding what you want (with due respect, of course).

Well, I hereby state, with all due respect to anyone who cares to listen, that: I need at least five weeks of vacation a year. Bottom line. I need that for my personal sanity, but also for my ability to produce creative output, to achieve and excel in my work.

Apparently, in Sweden, I can be a CEO and still do that.

- Astri 

Life is full of coincidences. They usually and probably don’t mean anything at all. Except, of course, when they happen to you.

Very recently, I got an inexplicable urge to watch Sex and the City. Though I had long since decided that all of these women are laughable caricatures of human beings (and especially of “modern” women), I couldn’t help myself. I mean, Aidan is just so cute and Mr. Big is just so awful and Carrie is just so well-dressed. The episode I randomly watched centered around Charlotte’s decision to give up her incredible gallery job to focus on (not being but, hopefully) becoming a mother and curing pediatric AIDS via a kick-ass fundraiser.

Yesterday, my dear friend Will sent me an Atlantic Monthly article called “I Choose My Choice!” by Sandra Tsing Loh. This being the phrase that Charlotte somewhat pathetically clings to when defending her decision to quit, or dare-I-say “opt-out,” of her unbelievably great job. The article makes a compelling (though now somewhat redundant) claim that the “fruits of the feminist revolution” are “sisterhood, empowerment, and eight hours a day in a cubicle.” Better reading, playing, and listening to NPR all day than toiling 80 hours a week in a boring and hated job. Who can argue with that?

Linda Hirshman. In “Homeward Bound,” Hirshman also references Charlotte’s “I chose my choice!” hysteria. Unlike Loh, Hirshman unapologetically condemns Charlotte. Her argument (not entirely unique, either) is that Charlotte’s “choice” is no “choice” at all: “‘Choice feminism’ claims that staying home with the kids is just one more feminist option. Funny that most men rarely make the same ‘choice.’ Exactly what kind of choice is that?”

What kind of choice, indeed? I have my opinions, but, in a rare act of self-restraint, I’m going to let you draw your own conclusions.

Read these two articles and see where you stand. Write in, while you’re at it, because I’m desperately curious to know.

I Choose My Choice

Homeward Bound 

- Vetta

You've Got Mail. Check It. Now. 

There was a great little story in The New York Times on June 23rd that brings up the case of a scuffle between ABC and some of the writers that work there. The question at hand? Whether answering emails on your BlackBerry from home constitutes work that you should be paid for or not. The Writer's Guild is making a stir because they are desperate to avoid what they call "the 24/7 workplace." The article is small, taking up only a couple of inches at the bottom of Monday's Media page, but the message within is huge. It pinpoints what is perhaps one of the greatest dilemmas of the present moment, when it comes to working and living. Is work becoming inseparable from life? Are we doomed to always be connected to our jobs?

On the one hand, we here at The Lattice Group are huge proponents of working from home, telecommuting, and, above all, flexibility (I am writing this from a temporary home in New York while communicating with current headquarters in Stockholm). Flexibility and freedom are possible in our day and age thanks largely to the gadgets that keep us wired and reachable at all times. Yes, you can work from your sailboat— but you are still responsible for responding promptly to work-related inquiries sent your way. And that can be the downside. Once you start being wired all the time, you are suddenly also on-call all the time. While the gadget opened the door to flexibility in the first place, it may also have drawn the curtain on being “free.” When work ceases to be contained to a place and a time, it commences to be everywhere, all the time.

On the other hand, this may be an inevitable development of our time even for people without an explicit desire for “flexibility.” The fact is that the globalized economy is increasingly competitive. And the Western economy is increasingly talent-based and creative. For a large part of the population, especially the college-educated segment that The Lattice Group focuses on, work will never mean punching in on a clock. Work will be an intrinsic part of you, all the time. Defined by what you think and create. Even by what you write in a facebook message or a gchat.

The Writer’s Guild is fighting back against a 24/7 workplace, but they may be too late. For many of us, the 24/7 workplace is already an irreversible reality. Gen Y is the first generation to be completely reared in an age of constant accessibility. We are the guinea pigs for this human experiment under the banner of the BlackBerry. The question is: what kind of a generation of children will we, as always-on-parents, raise?

- Astri 

Read the full NYTimes article here.  

Photo by bhikku on Flickr under Creative Commons License. 

Colleges Move Toward Encouraging Alternative Career Paths 

Walking in mid-town on a steamy Friday afternoon, the sidewalk transformed into an intricate, multiple-lane highway of speed-racing pedestrians skirting around wide-eyed, loitering tourists with irritated grunts, I took a moment to observe the business-clad walkers in the fast-lane. There were penguin-suit strutters with cufflinks gleaming, swaying khaki-legs topped with white button-downs and chunky loafers, black A-line skirts, elegant silk-mix wrap-dresses, and the endless click-click-click of a thousand appropriate-height kitten-heels. Here were the aspiring powerhouses of New York City. The early-to-work and late-home summer toilers of the white-collar persuasion, consuming and marketing goods for others to consume, washing down their eleven-hour days with venti-iced-non-fat-lattes. What do they all have in common? They are twenty-something and relatively new to the corporate cradle.

Where were they before the suits replaced the shorts in their tiny downtown apartments? Most likely, they were drinking Bud Light in dorm rooms, running the Earth Club after Sociology class and lounging on the manicured greens of their Ivy League or NESCAC lawns in-between. At their elite colleges, these youngsters often dreamed of making a difference in the world. Of solving climate change, curing AIDS, reforming the public education system. I know this much is true because I recently walked across the stage to retrieve the laminated diploma from just such an esteemed institution for higher learning. But, when leaping out of the college bubble and into the so-called “real world,” these dreams are more often than not replaced by new visions of large paychecks, extravagant company dinners and, well, prestige. An interesting New York Times article from June 23rd discusses the move from Ivy to Wall— Street, that is.

Pouring into Wall Street and Shying Away from Public Service

In “Big Paycheck or Service? Students are Put to the Test,” Sara Rimer writes about how top-level students from competitive universities are being recruited for jobs in corporate America. Financial services and management consulting top the lists, with 20% of the 2008 Harvard graduating class entering these occupations alone. And I see why. The online application process through the universities’ career services websites are relatively painless, and, as I can attest from my own experience, these are the fields that are highlighted and pushed to the greatest extent in those turbulent job-searching months as the curtain begins to fall over your undergraduate years. But, according to Rimer, though colleges seem to encourage students to apply for these kinds of jobs (my friends and I certainly felt that way), they may actually be beginning to resist the trend. Of course, the colleges have a lot to gain from their graduates going into lucrative careers (time to give back to your alma mater, anyone?), but producing some world-changing freedom-fighters, politicians, artists and humanitarians would arguably also be a nice detail for the alumni catalogue.

Colleges are beginning to do their bit to encourage alternative career paths, as they realize that many top students who would otherwise contribute to, say, public service are joining hedge funds instead. At Harvard, for instance, Professor Howard Gardener is teaching “reflection” seminars to encourage students to really think through ”the connection between their educations and aspirations.” The effort has gained wide support at Harvard, with new president, Drew Gilpin Faust, joining in. She made “the topic the cornerstone of her address to seniors during commencement week. Dr. Faust noted that in the past year, whenever she has met with students, their first question has always been the same: ‘Why are so many of us going to Wall Street?’” Why indeed.

Yes, those Loans Have to be Paid, but What if Colleges Would do it for You...? 

The article cites security as a major motivator for young people going for the corporate career options. In answer to this, Rimer writes that, “Tufts announced that it would pay off college loans for graduates who chose public service jobs. And officials at Harvard, Penn, Amherst and a number of other colleges say one reason they have begun emphasizing grants instead of loans in financial aid is so students do not feel pressured by their debts to pursue lucrative careers.”

Even Barack Obama is getting on the bandwagon. In his Weslyan University commencement speech this year, he “sounded an impassioned call to public service, and warned that the pursuit of narrow self-interest — ‘the big house and the nice suits and the other things that our money culture says you should buy ... betrays a poverty of ambition.’”

I understand the lure of security and the promise of corporate cushioning for the future. The world can be a frightening place. And a mountain of loans is scary as hell. But the young people graduating from American elite universities belong to 0.000000000001% of the world’s population that can really choose jobs and life paths as they wish. If these kids don’t dare take a risks, who will? That is not to say that taking a corporate job is a bad thing. Not at all. But if the so-called great halls of great minds are, in Harvard professor Howard Gardener’s words, “simply becoming selecting mechanisms for Wall Street,” then the world is bound to miss out on a lot of top-tier talent that could otherwise have chosen alternative careers.

I wish more of us recent grads would take the brains and spunk that we have and create innovative new companies and policies, rather than immediately taking the safe route to lucrative living. But if the corporate way truly is for you, make another brave move: take your insider’s perspective and dare to revolutionize corporate America to be more in-tune towards balance and equality. That way, you’ll still be doing a great public service.

- Astri 

College green picture by Nick in exsilio on Flickr under Creative Commons License.  

Business people phot by squacco on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

"If information is power, then most employees who enter salary negotiations are holding pea shooters while the boss is encased in a Kevlar vest"

Like providing vacation and parental leave, paying higher salaries is not in a company’s short-term (some might say shortsighted) best interest. It is free market diktat that an employer will strive to pay you as little as possible. And it’s annoying gender fact #37 that women are notoriously lousy at negotiating their salaries (which is one reason they earn exponentially less throughout their careers).

The main problem, for all us would-be employees, is that salary negotiations are scary. They are scary because they are not transparent— fear of the unknown, you see. But this is where the handy-dandy internet comes in, and it’s information granting, social networking super powers save the day.

Now, with websites like salary.com and payscale.com, you can fight back, just like Jessica Morrison, the heroine in a pseudo-recent New York Times article ("Using the Web to Get the Boss to Pay More"), did.

Jessica Morrison wrote advertising copy for Drugstore.com in Seattle. “After five years at the company and several promotions, her title was associate editor even though she had the same duties as a copywriter, a loftier title. She also suspected that at $42,000 a year, she was paid a lot less than someone else with her duties.

She checked PayScale, and its free report that compares her pay with others holding a similar job title said that someone with her experience should be making $50,000 to $60,000. Then she went to see her manager. ‘I was a little nervous going in, but I had done my research,’ Ms. Morrison, 27, said. She got the title she wanted and a raise to within the pay range she suggested.”

Success!

Since salary information from sites like PayScale are only as good as the information you provide, go there and add your data. You can find out just how well you did negotiating your salary. Afterwards, pat yourself on the back or, if you find yourself on the lower end of the payscale, print out that graph and schedule a meeting with the boss stat.

If they went through the trouble of hiring you or offering you a position, the likelihood is that they want to keep you. Yes, you— sweaty palms and all.

- Vetta 

Just How Far We Are From "Equal Parenting" 

We recently got our hands on a copy of the forthcoming documentary Who Does She Think She Is , by director and producer Pamela Tanner Boll, who is the Co-executive producer of the Academy Award winner Born Into Brothels. That film tells the gripping tale of one woman working to help more children in India’s “red light” district than she can possibly take on by herself. In Who Does She Think She Is, Boll again tackles a story that revolves around women and children, but this time it is the women who need the helping.

Who Does She Think She Is takes an in-depth look at what it really means to be an artist and a mother. Big deal, right? Wrong. What we learn when watching the film is that female artists who have family responsibilities have a really hard time. The difficulties come at them from all directions. Penetrating the art world as a woman is tricky enough, doing so as a mother as well is ten times as tough. The stigma against mothers that prevails throughout the working world (“they’ll take time off,” “they’ll be unreliable,” “they’ll always have other priorities …”) seems exceptionally strong when it comes to art. But the greatest challenge that these women face is much closer to home. It is the expectation that taking care of house and home, and the kids inhabiting that home, is primarily a woman’s responsibility.

I can count over a dozen people who, in the past couple of days, have sent me Lisa Belkin’s article in The New York Times entitled, “When Mom and Dad Share it All.” Besides the fact that I have apparently been labeled the equality police in the eyes of my social circle, the verifiable email storm directed my way reminded me that the idea of shared parenting is a rather novel one. As Belkin’s article makes painfully clear, the American norm is still more “stone-age” than “modern-age.” Women very much shoulder the brunt of the domestic burden— even when they are working as hard as their men-folk. Belkin writes that when both husband and wife have full-time paying jobs, “the wife does 28 hours of housework and the husband, 16. Just shy of 2 to 1, which makes no sense at all.” What makes even less sense is that in homes where the woman is the breadwinner and the man does not have a paying job, she still does the majority of the housework. This isn’t even counting childcare. Once childcare is brought into the picture, the ratio becomes close to 5 to 1.

No doubt about it: American society continues to view women as the “natural” caretakers. In the case of the female artists that Boll features in Who Does She Think She Is, the struggle to maintain a creative career at the same time as living up to the demands of being the family’s primary caretaker is often excruciatingly difficult. For instance, one of the women, performance artist Angela Williams, begins the film in a happy marriage and ends it as a divorcee. Her husband simply couldn’t handle her growing desire to devote time and energy on her budding career.

With its title and its female focus, Who Does She Think She Is risks scaring off a great deal of viewers, simply because many of us have instant negative reactions to things smelling even ever so faintly of “feminist.” In fact, my colleague Vetta, formerly a classic knee-jerk-anti-feminist, began the film with a skeptical air. As she watched, however, she became increasingly engaged. The film moves skillfully between in-depth portraits of several women and the discussion of women’s role in art throughout history. The result is, simply, captivating. And smart. And, yes, caring.

In an interview with The Lattice Group, Boll said, “I don’t think I would have been as persistent, as caring, as careful with each of my subjects, getting them to open up, if I had not had the experience of being a very present and very listening mother.” The mothering touch defines the film. And thanks to it, Boll is able to capture the deepest, and most conflicted, desires of several women. The portraits are sensitively drawn, the stories compelling. In the end, we are left both with deep empathy for the women portrayed, as well as a new understanding for the toll the caretaker-expectation takes on women who strive to be good mothers while maintaining their identity as working artists.

Who Does She Think She Is underlines how far we really are from “equal parenting” of the kind described in Belkin’s New York Times article. Personally, I read Belkin’s article with interest, but also with worry and…amusement. Belkin explains that the idea of “equal parenting” is so foreign to most people that there are coaches you can hire to show you how to do it— detailed descriptions of excel spreadsheets dividing daily labor included. It all seems rather absurd. Then again, a spreadsheet or two might not be a bad idea for the over-worked mothers in Boll’s film.

The interviews that The Lattice Group has been doing over the past couple of months give me hope that our generation, who will be becoming parents in the next decade, might do things differently. As a young medical student we interviewed recently said, “Sure, the mom carries the thing for nine months, but as soon as it comes out the dad has just as much responsibility.” Perhaps, for Gen Y parents, the caretaker-expectation will finally be de-mystified and duties— and joys — divided fairly. As one of the “equal parenting” fathers in The Times article comments in regards to his and his wife’s seemingly exceptional choice to split caregiving straight down the middle, “’Why isn’t this just called parenting?’” Good Question.

But, if things don’t actually change by the time we start procreating, perhaps the question Gen Y mothers should be asking is, “who does he think he is?”

- Astri

Read The Lattice Group's interview with Pamela Tanner Boll here.  

Visit the official homepage of the documentary Who Does She Think She Is here.

Read the full New York Times article here.

The Starting Early, Starting Right Act would improve the quality and availability of child care and significantly increase funding to help families pay for child care.  

- Vetta  

 Going for Dream Jobs Over Cash Money 

After conducting about 100 interviews in five countries, we’re the first to admit that members of Gen Y are not created equal—the policies and cultures that exist in the cities we’ve visited are surprisingly varied. Take, for example, opinions on childcare centers: Americans fear and loathe them, while Europeans respect and rely on them. Or, consider the general outlook on men’s child-rearing roles: young Swedish gents are prepared to push the baby stroller, alone even, while their Russian counterparts probably don’t know what such a contraption looks like.

Despite these clear differences, there is one generalization I’m comfortable making about Gen Y—Muscovite, Spaniard, Swede, or American. When it comes to work, money isn’t everything. It's certainly not that we’ve tempered our spending habits, it's just that we want our jobs to fit into our lifestyle— not be our lifestyle. As co-head of Monster Europe stated in a recent Financial Times article, younger generations “look at work less as a life focus than as a life-enriching experience.”

Work as a life-enriching experience? Baby Boomers, whose company loyalty and post war-era work ethic seemingly knew no bounds, must be scoffing, loudly, at the idea. But it’s true: jobs and careers are no longer seen as simply a means to an end. Rather, a challenging and fulfilling career has become an end in itself. A 2001 survey found that 56 percent of people regarded their life outside as more important than their work, as compared with only 12 percent in 1955.

Though the "work to live" mantra has long been associated with European countries like France and Italy, the FT article (“Fair Pay: Money isn’t Everything”) claims that according to recent poll and survey data, “very few workers conform to the maximise-at-all-costs model of classical economic theory, least of all in countries where markets are run in closest conformity to those theories.” In fact, respondents to a recent Monster survey from countries on the lower end of the tax and government involvement spectrum—like the UK, US, and Ireland—were more likely to say they would “take a pay cut for the job of [their] dreams” than respondents from other countries in North America and Europe. One of the highest yes votes was in the US (82 per cent), while the average across the sample was 76 per cent.

Though "dream job" is up for interpretation, our own research confirms the idea that Gen Y has more "lifaholic" than "workaholic" tendencies. When we ask our interviewees what kind of benefits they look for in an employer, salaries are rarely at the top of the list, if they’re mentioned at all. Instead, I would say one of the most common responses is that Gen Yers want "interesting work." For all our flaws, members of Gen Y want to be challenged. And we want the opportunity to grow— training, further education, and mentorship programs are common responses as well.

This should be music to the ears of HR departments everywhere! Don't try to out-do your competitors by way of salaries.  To attract top talent, give us real responsibilities and mentors. Winners of the Great Place to Work Institute Europe Awards, for example, were not necessarily the highest payers. Instead, "awardees shared a philosophy emphasizing fairness, transparency and rewarding good work.” Each company doled out a large performance-related bonus element, sometimes worth as much as three to six months salary.

Now you're talking. We Gen Yers want to be told that we matter, that we did a good job. Me, me, me, me, me! Give us benefits correlated to our personal performance, rather than the amount of time we spend g-chatting at the office, and I assure you that next report will come in at record speed.

- Vetta

"Winther Motor Company" photo by Wisconsin Historical Society on flickr.com under creative commons license.

Business will suffer a major brain drain.

While riding the train to a Stockholm interview yesterday, I found myself reading back logs of The Economist (stacks of which my father leaves by my bed— oh the glory of parents’-house sejours), and stumbled upon the following:

A brief article entitled “Vital Statistics” divulged interesting findings from recent research about education and sex. Remember how boys are inherently better at math? Turns out, according to Luigi Guiso of the European University Institute in Florence and his colleagues, it’s culture and not biology that decides the score, in math at least. “In this week’s Science, they show that the gap in mathematics scores between boys and girls virtually disappears in countries with high levels of sexual equality, though the reading gap remains.”  The math-gap “vanished in countries such as Norway and Sweden, where the sexes are more or less on a par with one another.” The study, which examined some 276,000 15-year olds from 40 countries, showed that girls scored higher on reading overall. But in highly egalitarian countries where the math gap had vanished, the reading gap had only increased. The result? “Girls may acquire an absolute advantage over boys as a result of equal treatment.”

Now that is interesting. We’re in Sweden interviewing Swedish young people, so the news doesn’t strike me as that revolutionary. After all, “of course!” is the resounding response to splitting parental leave and household responsibilities equally, and, perhaps most interestingly, the majority of the young Swedish women we have interviewed claim that they think they will be equally or more ambitious career-wise than their future husband. Remember my little Drivers Ed blog a while back? I discussed how basically all of the young women we had interviewed so far, in all of the countries we traveled to (up until Sweden), said they were looking for a husband who was more ambitious than they. What did the Swedish girl we interviewed yesterday answer? “I think he should be happy for my sake if I am making more money! Really, now.”

If the Economist’s education stats are correct, the Swedes may be on to something. With girls taking the lead academically, perhaps couples better get used to a shift in who-earns-what. Women may very well be earning more in the future. But what will happen to the family, then? Women are, after all, globally the ones who shoulder most of the domestic duties. And no matter their brainpower, women seem to be the ones to re-prioritize after having children. As several young women interviewees have said, “Balance seems more important for women.”

When are we going to reach a point where we realize that balance is important for business as well? With all of these high-achieving women choosing balance over work schedules that they consider incompatible with a healthy and well-rounded life, companies are losing out. If those education stats are true, while women continue to opt out, business will be suffering a major brain drain.
 
The most successful companies of the future will be the ones who figure out how to retain young and restless talent. I am certainly not the first to say that. But it is high time big business listened up. Create more flexibility, more creative freedom, and less vertical hierarchies and you’re bound to keep some innovative thinkers and doers who might otherwise choose to leave.

As one young Swedish engineer (a woman) commented in an interview this week, “If my company is not tolerant and understanding of my needs, I’ll leave. I have that option, and I have no qualms about doing it.”

Our generation doesn’t have much inherent company loyalty. The challenge for companies is to give us a reason to get some.

- Astri

read a truncated version of the article online here  

photo by foundphotoslj on Flickr under Creative Commons License 

Anything we can do for our kids is going to benefit our city and our country. [Having] flex time would be beneficial because a lot of times I miss going to a PTA or going to a meeting with my kids. Or I didn’t make it and my wife had to, even though I wanted to go. Somebody had to go to work and somebody had to miss work.
- Security Guard

A Better Balance, a legal and policy advocacy organization devoted to improving work/life balance for families across class lines, has recently released a report, “A Working Balance: Supporting New York City’s Families Through Paid Leave.” The project was a joint effort with the Manhattan Borough President’s Office in an effort to understand the role of paid family leave policies on working adults with family responsibilities in New York City.

The report is based on two focus groups—an admittedly not statistically significant approach, but one that often produces rich and insightful narratives (and one that we at The Lattice Group rather fancy, of course).  One group consisted of working adults with family responsibilities who have limited access to paid leave, sick days or flexible work policies. The eight participants included one security guard, four restaurant workers, two administrative assistants and a director of a small non-profit. The first focus group generated the following findings:

• Employees occasionally need time off from work to manage urgent family needs.
• Employees who come to work despite being sick or having sick family members are less productive and can decrease the productivity of others.
• Providing paid leave benefits and flexible work schedules will better protect an employer’s investment in their employees.
• Employees widely support and need paid time off in order to make better decisions regarding their families’ care.
• The cost of employees taking unpaid sick days can be far greater than the loss of pay for those occasional days; it can mean suspension, loss of a more desirable shift, loss of health insurance coverage or loss of their jobs.
• Employees and employers view New York State’s current Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) benefit of up to $170 a week as inadequate compensation.

The second focus group consisted of employers: one human resource personnel from a government agency, four from non-profit organizations, and two small business owners. 

• By offering strong salary and benefit packages, employers seek to create a competitive edge in recruiting and retaining top talent.
• Employers recognize the connection between strong benefits, apostitive work culture and fostering mutual trust with employees.
• Employers want to adopt policies that better support their employees, but must consider the financial impacts of such decisions first.
• Government-sponsored paid leave benefits would protect workers and employers, while alleviating undue financial pressures experienced by both groups.

The report makes the following three City level recommendations:

• 1. The City should pass the Temporary Disability Insurance expansion bill.
• 2. Implement paid sick days for all workers in New York City.
• 3. The City should Implement paid parental and family leave policy for all municipal workers, thereby leading by example.

What you can do:

• If you’re a New York, contact your City Council and State Legislature and urge them to expand TDI.
• Or, hope you and your fellow New Yorkers never get sick or want to have a family.

- Vetta

photo by storm crypt on flickr.com under creative commons license.  

This is a call for submissions to the third edition of LATTICE, The Lattice Group online journal.

We take fiction and nonfiction and, though we haven't had any yet, we are certainly up for poetry as well--  as long as it in some way deals with working and living and the tenuous balance therein.

Check out past editions to get inspired:

November 2007

April 2008

Send submissions to:

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Deadline: July 1st

We can't wait to read it.   

We have left Russia behind and are now back in Sweden to complete our interviews with students and young professionals up North! It’s really not fair that we do Sweden after Russia. The contrast is so drastic. I am exhausted after two and a half weeks of men telling me my natural place is in the home. Returning to the land of paternity leave is more than exciting. It is liberating.

So, here we are. Already on the plane from Moscow, bloggable material was thrown my way in the form of Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter . The first thing I read was an article about why Sweden is heading towards the top of the European birth-rate list. Swedish women are birthing at a whopping 1.87 children per woman! That doesn’t make us able to self-renew our population size. For that, the Swedish women would need to be popping out 2.1 children apiece. Nontheless, Dagens Nyheter is calling it a verifiable babyboom. The generous welfare system that is in place to support families is cited as a major reason. Women are simply more able to combine work and family when there is so much help to be had to make the balance possible.

And, this balance is not only healthy for the nation’s population growth, it is also sexy. Or so another article in Dagens Nyheter tells me. The article is entitled “Super Woman is Back,” and outlines how the new female ideal is not all body and no brain; she is a competent and equal, even enviable, partner. According to Catia Hultquist, the average male celebrity no longer wants a trophy wife. Now, he wants a hot lady who has a hot career to match his own. It’s all about power-coupling. Just look at Bragelina.

Pop culture demonized Super Woman in the form of the threatening “career woman” in the 80’s and 90’s, in films like “Fatal Attraction,” and “Disclosure.” But now, as Hultquist says: “She’s back: Super Woman 2.0. And in 2008 it’s OK to be turned on by her. The question is how many decades it’ll take before it’ll also be OK to vote for her. When will she be prime minister? Or president?”

Ah, it feels good to be back in Sweden. Expect a lot more from this Venice of the North.

Puss och kram,

Astri

read the babyboom article here

photo on Flickr by xrrr under Creative Commons License.  

Yesterday we had an interview with a charming Russian twenty-something, let’s call her Tanya. Tanya is eloquent and poised and gave us almost two hours of her time, even though she is under a lot of pressure as a legal assistant on probation period- meaning she is hired on trial for three months, a system common in Russia. Tanya expressed some views on work and family life that we have come to expect as the norm after two weeks here in Moscow: women are biologically made to be the primary caregivers for children, it is much more difficult for women to achieve work-life balance because they have so many more responsibilities than men do, and as a woman, she is looking to marry a man who is more ambitious, and more intelligent, than she. A man should be stronger, wiser, more driven, otherwise, “He is not a man!”

Of course, I have heard this many times before. And the answer is certainly not isolated to Russian interviewees. I have met a ton of incredibly intelligent and impressive men in my life, including many of our interviewees, but I have met equally many intelligent and impressive women. I certainly don’t feel as though there is a cornucopia of capable men and a dearth of equally capable women in this world. Not at all. Therefore, I ask: where will these intelligent ladies find these ”more intelligent” men that they claim to be looking for?  

Even my own dear colleague, Vetta, told me that she always wanted to be with someone smarter and more successful. Well, you may not know Vetta, but I do. And to find someone who is smarter and has the potential to be more successful is quite a tall order. I tell her so all the time. She then told me that her mother (Russian mother, by the way) always encouraged her to get smart but “not too smart!” because then she would never find a husband.

Ah…the fog is clearing.

Let me propose the following: Vetta’s mother is giving her daughter good advice, in many ways. And Tanya and Vetta’s expectations will probably make them more marriageable than me, for instance. But that is not because they will actually be less intelligent than the men they end up with. This expectation is an expression of their understanding that, in general, men want to be the higher earner, the higher thinker, in general, on top, in a relationship. It is not about the woman’s intelligence level. It is about the man’s sense of self. Therefore, the women’s answers reflect an understanding on their part that few men would be comfortable in the passenger seat.

What does that leave us with? A lot of women driving solo? A mass of back-seat drivers? (Because, as Vetta also tells me, her mother clearly runs the show even though she lets her father believe he is the one in charge— again, presumably, to preserve his manhood.)

As for me, I hope to split the driving equally with my future hypothetical mate on the road of life. I figure, that way we’ll both stay alert and there will be less chance that one of us falls asleep behind the wheel…

And Vetta? Over these past couple of months I think she’s gotten the taste for driving after all.

- Astri 

Photo by Ben McLeod on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

 

Privet, comrades!

Some news to share.

The "2008 National Study of Employers," brought to you by the folks at the Families and Work Institute, recently reported that "employers with more women and more minorities in top positions, and nonprofits organizations, are more likely to offer flexible workplaces." Not exactly shocking, seeing as women are often most in need of flexibility, so they can bear the heavier load of household responsibilities they continue to shoulder, and non-profits aren't, well, exclusively concerned with profits. The question is, how do we encourage more traditional companies to offer flexible policies? Ban profit-making and place women and minorities at the head of everything! Kidding.
 

It also appears that employers are offering less and less when it comes to traditional benefits like pensions, retirement plans, and health insurance coverage. If this happened in Europe, you can be sure people would take to the streets (even high school kids do! see picture from Paris). American employers need not worry about protest-induced bull-horns and traffic jams, but they should worry about the dwindling worker pool and how to best attract and retain new workers.

Highlights from the report:

On the Rise

• Flexibility: 79% of employers now allow at least some employees to periodically change their arrival and departure time, up from 68% in 1998.
• 38% of organizations allow some employees to take sabbaticals (paid or unpaid leaves of six months or more) and return to a comparable job.
• Maternal Benefits: More employers are providing private space for breastfeeding women in 2008 (53%) than in 1998 (37%).
• Domestic Partners: Employers are more likely to provide health insurance for unmarried partners of employees—31% in 2008, compared with 14% ten years ago.
  

On the Decline

• Part-time to full-time tracks: 47% of employers today allow at least some employees to move from full-time to part-time work and back again while remaining in the same position or level, down from 57% in 1998.
• Maternal Benefits: Far fewer employers provide full pay during the period of maternity-related disability, today at 16%, down from 27% in 1998.
• 22% of employers offer more than the 12 weeks of mandated maternity leave, yet 18 to 21% of all employers surveyed appear to be out of compliance with FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act).  
  
• Health Care Premiums: Only 4% of employers pay all of the premiums for family members today, compared with 13% in 1998.
  
• Overall, 35% of employers report increasing employees' premium co-pays for individual and family health care coverage in the past 12 months.
• Pension & Retirement Plans: 29% offer defined pension plans in 2008 compared with 48% in 1998.
•  Employers in 2008 are less likely (81%) than employers in 1998 (91%) to make contributions to employees' retirement plans.
  

The NSE is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and is downloadable at www.FamiliesandWork.org.

- Vetta
 

Yesterday, we interviewed a hot young Muscovite. The son of one of Russia’s major cultural figures, he is attractive, well-dressed and well-educated. He carried himself with an incredibly confident, albeit arrogant, air and talked louder and more than anyone else in the room. And what did he say? Here are some selected quotes:

“In raising children, the father is responsible for thinking, the mother is responsible for feeling.”

“Only through a mother who stays at home can children be raised properly.”

“My mother was responsible for everything (in the home). My father was responsible for his own mind.”

“I want to find a person that will be able to make kids for me, sorry for saying that. I’m thinking about kids and not a real love, because I don’t believe in it.”

“Russian women prefer to be under men. Why? I don’t know. Other countries, in Europe and the United States, it’s completely different. I don’t think it’s better like that. I think it’s better like we have it here. Because I think that only men can think artistically, only men can create art. A woman can support a man and help him create better. It’s biology.”

Any women who have made larger contributions to humanity?

"Exceptions."

He summed it all up by saying he thinks his views reflect the general Russian perspective on these issues. Is it strange that I, a young woman with creative aspirations, yearn to return to the Western world? And quick, at that.

Out and over.

- Astri 

According to a study done by SACO (Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations), single women earn more than their married or co-habitating counterparts. An article in The Local notes,

“Saco's chairperson Anna Ekström and Saco's economist Håkan Regnér point out that women are punished when they start a family whereas men's salaries often get a boost.

Employers expect women to take more responsibility in the home, and therefore reward them less economically. Women spend more time at home, and men work more, thus widening the inequality, the study says.”

Dagens Nyheter notes that, according to SACO, women lose between 5 and 10% by moving in with their partner while men earn about 10 to 15% more when they marry or co-habitate. I guess Sweden isn’t a complete utopian paradise after all. It’s more like the rest of the world than we first may have thought.

- Astri 

Read the full article in The Local here.

Read the DN article here.  

I never took a course in economics at university. Granted, this may have been a mistake—a classically unconscious, feminine mistake— as I instead threw myself into literature and film studies. And so, when I sat down for a five-hour chat-marathon with a former investment banker this past weekend, I had a lot to learn. And, as opposed to in my defiant I-don’t-need-excel-models college days, this time I was desperate to learn. Not getting acquainted with the basics of how the financial world works, giggling naively at the mention of stocks and freezing up at the thought of investing— these are all typical mistakes that women make. Which, in turn, may be a big reason why women fall into financial dependence on a spouse more often than men. “I’ll let him deal with that,” we think. Big mistake. But that is another blog entirely.

Now, back to my investment banker. Let’s call him Steve. Steve is a multilingual wiz in his mid-twenties who has worked in finance in New York and London and has now jumped ship to Moscow— the new goldmine of opportunity for those ready to play hard and bend the rules. Steve has pulled out of banking altogether in favor of taking the full plunge into Russian bizniz- Oligarks galore and so on. Nonetheless, he had some very interesting insights into why investment bankers really work as hard as they do, and why work conditions vary between financial capitals.

First off, Steve explains the long hours:

“Say you are merging two companies. Imagine all the work it takes to consolidate two independent operational, infrastructural and financial organizations. Then, keep in mind that the merger itself must be kept secret until is has been completed and can be officially announced. Otherwise, one of the competing banks may pick it up and you lose the deal. Or, the market may hear of it and begin to short your stock. The bottom line is that the job must be kept top secret. How do you do that? You tell as few people as possible, say five people, thus employing a need-to-know based system. These five people are now responsible for completing the inhumane amount of work it takes to merge two companies in an inhumanely short amount of time for fear of the information leaking out. What do we get? 18-hour days. Sorry, Lattice team, there is no way to change that.”

But, there are different ways of treating your employees. And, according to Steve, attitudes vary between banks, and between countries.

According to Steve, in New York everyone wants to get out of banking as soon as possible. Enter as an analyst and leave when you have had your three or so years of experience. Move on to better hours and better pay in hedge funds, private equity and so on. In London, on the other hand, Steve asserts that the majority of entering analysts hope to stay on and ascend the ranks to managerial positions. Why this difference? “Less alternative opportunities,” he says. The result is that you are treated as a banker in London, while in New York, you are a measly analyst buried under a pile of processing work. Do the actual work conditions vary that much? “Not really,” Steve says “The hours and the work are the same, but at least you’re treated as a ‘real’ banker.”

Then there is the example of the Russian investment bank that Steve’s friend works at here in Moscow. Rather than training analysts to rise up as managers, this bank has the policy of head hunting already trained expert executives from other banks by luring them with huge salaries. What this means in practice is that the analysts in this system are not valued highly and are treated accordingly. There is no need to reward them handsomely since the company goal is not to retain them, but to use them for all they’ve got and then throw them away—or let them leave when they’re broken down enough. Wear and tear sums up their policy. Steve describes his friend who works as a first-year analyst at this Russian bank as the hardest working investment banker he has ever met. His regular workday spans the unbelievable hours of 8 am to 4 am, including weekends.

When I look shocked, Steve winks at me and assures me that the human body can get used to anything. “Soon enough, four hours of sleep seems like all you need.”

But I am left to wonder: is this really efficient? Cultivating innovation is obviously not the Russian bank’s strategy for analysts, but what about in London and New York where the hours are nearly as long? Do 16-hour work days really yield desirable results? How good is your work on the 16th hour, how accountable your numbers? “Not very,” Steve admits. “You make a lot of mistakes. The key is to make few enough not to be fired.”  

That sure doesn’t seem like the best system to me. I’m in Russia, I know that business is bizniz, so forget the human aspects for a moment (though it pinches my Lattice heart strings to do so) and ask: What if a bank truly made an effort to maximize productivity as well as innovation by making things just a little less insane? More sleep equals less costly mistakes, and perhaps better deals, no?

Or perhaps that is just my know-nothing-about-finance mind talking and you should just send me back to my books and let you get back to your 20-hour shift. Just don’t complain about it. No matter how much your life sucks, you know what you signed up for— and you have the bonus to show for it.

- Astri

photo by Tracy O on Flickr under Creative Commons License

The Lattice Group is currently in Moscow, Russia, in order to see how the young think of working and living in the Eastern Motherland. Yesterday, we interviewed a Russian girl who is a student of Logistics at the Higher School of Economics. Let's call her Nadja.

Now, first off: the typical stereotype of Russian women is they are looking for a rich Western man to give them a plane-ticket out. This image, often not so kindly referred to as the "mail-order-bride" phenomenon, comes with the attitude of seeing Russian women as groomed sex objects to be used as trophies. The stereotype is certainly not to marry out in order to work; it is to marry into wealth and leisure. This stereotype is despicable, and not true, obviously. What's more, Nadja turned it on its head.

Nadja said, quite adamantly, that she doesn't want to marry a Russian man. She is actively looking for a Western European mate. Why? Because she wants to be with a  man who puts family first and who respects her career ambitions.  Opting out of the country in order not to have to opt out of the work-force? This is new. 

Nadja reinforced something that we've already heard several times in the few days that we have been in Moscow: Russian men don't care about family.  Nadja put it bluntly:

"Most Russian men want to marry early, already in university. They care about you for a couple of years, but when the children come they start working longer and longer and never come home. You are just someone to take care of everything and do everything for them. Serve them."

Nadja says that she wants a Western man because she wants to be with someone who sees their relationship as a partnership. Someone who will talk to her. Because, she says, " Russian men would rather go to a psychologist than talk to their wives about anything."

We're in deep Lattice water here. I was about to get all up in arms, ready to fight any Russian man who comes my way in order to knock some respect into them. But then Nadja turned the tables on herself. Despite the fact that she claims to want to run her own multi-national company in the future, she asserts that women are biologically made to be the primary caregivers and that women should stay home with their children until they are at least of school age. When we asked if maybe the father also has a caregiving role to play, she scrunched up her brow and said that the father's role is to provide- financially, that is. 

OK, little lady. With that attitude she'd better stay far away from Northern European men. Those "Svens" are going to make a quick grab for her baby and demand their own right to parental leave with their pockets filled with baby bottles and pacifiers. Perhaps Nadja would do better with the likes of Sasha, the Russian consultant we interviewed. He claimed that women were not psychologically made for hard work and that it is the man's role to take care of her. She should work, but only to keep herself entertained. Making money isn't the woman's responsibility, and shouldn't be her goal. Like Nadja, Sasha calls on biological difference to define appropriate roles for men and women. Perhaps she shouldn't be so quick to opt out of the country after all.  

- Astri 

photo by Pikaluk on Flickr under Creative Commons License 

Recently, we were asked to contribute a blog for Peaceful Revolution, a weekly blog about work/life satisfaction on The Huffington Post. We tried to maintain our calm and composure, but we fear they could hear our high-pitched squeals even through the email correspondence. 

Read it in all it's fancy HuffPost formatted glory here.  

Or, for the extremely lazy among you, you can read the full post below.  

Peaceful Revolution: Gen Y-Fi - A Call to Arms

After several months and hundreds of interview hours, few work-life horror stories surprise me these days. But this one, brought to my inbox from the friendly folks at MomsRising.org, incited a sincere gasp: did you know that the U.S. government doesn't offer their employees any paid parental leave days after the birth or adoption of a new child?

That truly surprised (and then disappointed and then angered) me. I always thought that the government sector notoriously offered good benefits, like comparatively generous vacation time and decent work hours, to make up for the mediocre pay civil servants receive, as well as to set a good example for private employers. Yet, the U.S. government, which employs 2.7 million people, forces its employees to chose between paying their bills and caring for their newborn children.

After spending time in Spain, France, and Sweden—where paid maternity leave is so engrained it has been internalized as an absolute right, and paid paternity leave will likely be commonplace in the foreseeable future—I have a hard time imagining exactly how new parents manage when they have no paid parental leave whatsoever. After all, the Europeans with children that we’ve interviewed painted a rather taxing picture of parenthood: the additional responsibilities, finding space in the public child care system, the difficulty of letting go once your two weeks (fathers, Spain and France), four months (mothers, France), or 1.5 years (split by both parents, Sweden) are up. Now imagine being a new parent without a single day available to take off unless you can afford not to work, which increasingly few people can.

Sitting in my Soviet-kitsch kitchen—the real deal, we’re in Moscow—sipping tea and mindlessly eating pickled garlic, I’m physically on the other side of the world from my hometown in Southern California. In terms of social values, I feel perhaps even more distant.  Even in Russia—not really a model of progressive, well, anything—mothers are entitled to one year of paid parental leave!

On the bright side, in America, unlike in Russia these days, we actually have a voice and can affect government policies. Members of congress listen to their constituents—but only when they give clear and decisive directions. Click here to quickly and painlessly voice your support for the Federal Employee Paid Parental Leave Act (H.R. 5781), which would give all federal employees 4 weeks of paid parental leave.

Introduced by Rep. Carolyn Maloney  with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), the bill just passed out of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee with the support of Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Chairman Danny Davis (D-IL).  It is expected to be up for a full House vote in the next couple of weeks.

 - Vetta

Madeleine May Kunin served as Governor of Vermont, 1985-1991, as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education, 1993-1996, and Ambassador to Switzerland, 1996-1999. She is the founder of the Institute for Sustainable Communities, is a Marsh professor at the University of Vermont, and a commentator on Vermont public radio. She also served three terms as a state representative and two terms as Lt. Governor. Now she blogs for The Lattice Group. And what an honor it is! 

Inevitably, with a woman running for President, gender has become a hot topic for political pundits and lattice bloggers alike. With long experience looking at the role of women in politics, Kunin gives her perspective on the endless race that the US primary election has become, and the role of Hillary Clinton as the first real female contendor for the role of Commander-in-Chief. 

The Lattice Group remains non-partisan and invites all sides to join the discussion.

Hillary Clinton: Staying In 

Should she or shouldn’t she?

Get out.

That’s the question that Hillary Clinton and her supporters are being asked as the primary campaign winds down.

Her massive win in West Virginia, garnering 67% of the vote proved that she could attract working class votes on a grand scale.

But is West Virginia enough?

As I watched her victory speech after the West Virginia primary I found myself with conflicted emotions.  She looked as if she never had missed a moment’s sleep. Confident and dazzling in the cloak of victory.  How does she do it?, I asked myself as I shared in her joy.   How does she remain so strong, so awake, so determined?

This is one resilient woman, ready to bounce back again and agin.  It was a great night for her and for Hillary Clinton supporters.  And yet,  I could not dislodge the shadow that crept across the screen, a shadow cast by the talking heads who dismissed her achievement and continued to say with routine monotony that there was no way she could pull it off, despite West Virginia and an expected triumph in Kentucky next Tuesday.

They may be right.  But like Hillary, I am not ready to call it quits.  I will not walk out on Hillary Clinton unless and until she bows out on her own terms.  Yes, it’s an uphill fight and, yes, the chances are slim that she can prevail. But I am filled with admiration for her fighting spirit, for her strength, and for her ability to achieve what no woman in American history has yet done— demonstrate that a qualified woman candidate for President is a tough, resilient, and serious contender who will fight for the democratic nomination until the last primary votes are counted. She has the right to bring her message to every voter, to continue to give Americans a choice, until the nominee is chosen.

I have supported Hillary Clinton from the start because I have gotten to know her over the years.  First, when she was a governor’s spouse and I was Governor of Vermont during Bill Clinton’s tenure as governor of Arkansas.  Then I saw her in action in the White House while I was Deputy Secretary of Education and later Ambassador to Switzerland.  I was wowed by her brilliance, impressed by her ability to make a come back after the failure of her health care plan. I got to know a Hillary Clinton who is far different from the card board cut out figure portrayed in the media.  She is warm and funny, and most importantly, she cares about the future of our country. That is why it is hard to let go, not now, not yet.

- Madeleine Kunin is the author of the recently published book, "Pearls, Politics and Power, how women can win and lead," Chelsea Green Press, White River Jct. Vermont 2008 and  She she is the author of a political memoir, "Living a Political Life," Knopf, 1994.

photo by Paul Boisvert 

By starting The Lattice Group, Vetta and I joined the ranks of those who say no to a boss and yes to self-governance. We’re happily (if not so lucratively) self-employed. Starting something of your own, whether a money-making venture or a non-profit like ours, entails a lot of self-discipline, long hours and belief in something that may at times seem completely insane, and certainly risky. But it’s a hell of a ride! I, for one, recommend it.

So do two young entrepreneurs that we spotlighted this week, Jason Farrell and Levi Brooks, creators of Use All Five Inc. , a creative and branding agency based in Los Angeles, California. Their interview gives a refreshingly honest look into how self-entitled we, Gen Y:ers, really are. But also how talented. And how misunderstood. Instead of struggling against a hierarchal system they didn’t believe in, and which they felt wouldn’t believe in them, they opted out of the traditional entry-level and into the start-up: way-up.

Read and learn. I certainly did. 

- Astri 

Access the full interview with the brains behind Use All Five Inc here.

The "No-Parent-Left-Behind" Act  

On April 17th, two French Ministers revealed a Charter of Parenthood, a non-enforceable text encouraging employers to better take into account parenthood. Major companies signed the Charter, including L’Oréal, Ernst & Young, Total and Starbucks. This initiative reflects a growing consensus among the French and European political class that, although efforts have been made over the past decade, it is still very hard for mothers and fathers to find childcare solutions for children under three years old, which is often times both detrimental for parent’s careers and children’s welfare.

perpetuating a system in which motherhood often equals professional sacrifice is economic nonsense

While French mothers enjoy a maternity leave of up to 26 weeks at full pay (eleven days for fathers) and a further leave that is available until the child’s third birthday (paid 530€ maximum), few solutions exist for those who want to keep working. An upgraded childcare policy would allow for positive impact on both children and parents’ careers. We must tackle the issue by providing parents, and especially the poorest, with more choices to jointly organize parenthood and a comprehensive work life. Parents should be encouraged and assisted, not deterred.

Because of both economic and cultural transformations promoting women’s rights and gender equality, more women work now than ever before. However, society has not adapted rapidly enough to this new paradigm and parents, especially mothers, as well as children, have suffered from this inadequacy. The lack of childcare solutions has forced many women, especially those with low qualifications, to accept part-time jobs (with lower remunerations and fewer social rights attached to them) or unemployment. In fact, one in every two French mothers of children under three is unemployed. Yet, to the extent that many data suggest that this is often not a real choice, perpetuating a system in which motherhood often equals professional sacrifice is economic nonsense.

the system requires parents to be both breadwinners and nurturers but provides very little help to meet this challenge

Furthermore, many studies have shown that fighting parent’s unemployment is the best way to reduce child poverty . Working is essential for a single parent who wants to provide for his or her family. Or else they are doomed to poverty. Not surprisingly, the number of single-parent families rose - almost 3 million children in France now live with only one of their parents - while the number of families with children living in poverty has increased between the 1980’s and the 1990’s in OECD countries (except for Scandinavian countries). Unfortunately, the system requires parents to be both breadwinners and nurturers but provides very little help to meet this challenge. The situation is not sustainable and this is why a comprehensive “no parent left behind act” is needed right now.
 
First, policy makers could consider creating more incentives for companies to offer employees more flexibility in the way they want to organize their work time, so that they can meet the need of their young children. The Charter of Parenthood recently presented in France might be regarded as a first step, but it relies entirely on self-regulation and is still very vague. Basically, the companies commit themselves to “eliminate discriminatory measures” towards parent-workers and to raise awareness among their Human Resources executives about the issues parents face.

However, further initiatives could be taken so as to make sure all businesses help parents balance their career with their parental obligations. The State could play an important role in instigating such a move, for example by creating fiscal incentives for companies to put in place progressive human resources practices. But even so, parents can only be enticed to work if they are assured that, regardless of their income, their children will have access to professional caregivers, in facilities of high quality standards.

reduce social inequalities in the long run

For that reason, the second and highly complementary element of the “no parent left behind” act is a public policy aimed at increasing the number of childcare institutions for children under three (before their entrance to pre-school). This system would have the potential to significantly reduce infant poverty by giving parents the choice to keep on working.  It could also reduce social inequalities in the long run by providing every child with equal opportunities to early education.

Indeed, early childhood is an age when the most fundamental cognitive skills are developed, and a sound childcare system could make sure every child is provided with a stimulating environment. Childcare centers, through the various activities they organize, can play a key role in improving children’s welfare. They can do so by enhancing their knowledge acquisition capabilities over their entire education and life, fostering their social skills or helping to integrate children coming from immigrant backgrounds, thus reducing inequalities in the long term.
 
A “no parent left behind act” giving parents more work flexibility and providing them with fine childcare solutions would allow more parents, and chiefly mothers, to stay at work during their child’s early infancy. It would eventually increase the total employment rate, along with positive outcomes in overall wealth, consumption and Welfare State funding. It would also encourage parenthood in countries that are victims of demographic gloominess, such as Italy and Germany

President Sarkozy’s promise to establish an guaranteed right (“droit opposable”) to a childcare plan

In an effort to tackle the challenge of balancing work and family responsibilities, the French Government recently announced that it has started working on President Sarkozy’s promise to establish an guaranteed right (“droit opposable”) to a childcare plan. Concretely, it would mean that every parent may require the State to provide them with a solution for childcare, whether organized by public bodies, parents cooperatives, companies, accredited family care providers or even through home care providers. While it is still unknown whether the plan will successfully address the multidimensional aspects of childcare, and most notably its relevance for reducing inequalities among children, it can only be welcomed.

Let us hope it can inspire other countries facing the same issue. “No parent left behind” is not only beneficial to parent’s careers and household’s revenues but also seeks to provide future citizens with more equal life opportunities. Children are our future and it is today’s citizens’ duty to make sure society is giving parents all the tools they need to raise them the best they can.
 
- Félix Tréguer is a student in the Master of Public Affairs at Sciences Po, Paris. His interests include women, traveling, music, psychedelia and tattoos, but also philosophy, social criticism and issues relating to civil liberties and Information and Communication Technologies.

A student of Spain, Sweden and the US:

How do the Systems Compare?

I am a Swedish student that is currently studying as a Spaniard in the US. I know this sounds awkward, but the path I have chosen is unusual. Let me explain.

I began my studies at the Political Science program at the University of Lund in the South of Sweden. This is how the Swedish system works: the students focuses on one subject at a time, taking a 5-hour exam on their comprehension of the subject from reading a book of approx. 500 pages. In this way, the Swedish student develops very good analytical skills, critical thinking and thorough knowledge of the subject and its underlying mechanisms, primarily by being forced to engage with the material and learn on their own. I believe that the Swedish university system gives the student deeper academic knowledge than in Spain or in the US. However, I find the Swedish studies far too theoretical and many times unable to provide the student with the tools that facilitate an entry in the real job market. A book is a book, after all. And the practical world is often far from the theory of those pages.

After one year in Lund, I entered the International Business Program at Universidad Pontificia Comillas (ICADE) that consists of two years in Madrid, Spain, and two years in Boston, USA. The international atmosphere was exciting with a class of students from all over the world. The first few weeks I felt as though I had found my place in paradise. But soon the struggles began. The first year is seen as a “threshold.” The pressure of a possible elimination was felt every day and the teachers reminded us of it constantly: “Next year I will probably only see half of you here.” The schedule was gruesome. We had classes from 8 am to 6 pm, with a 2-hour siesta in the middle. You study nine subjects at a time and the teachers gave plenty of assignments in each. In every class, you had to be extremely alert and take notes constantly, because books are rarely used. Many teachers also called upon students randomly to come to the board for public examination. “Respecting” authorities is crucial in the Spanish educational culture and you cannot come far if you disobey the rules of conduct. Finals consisted of nine exams that counted 100% of the final grade. These exams were taken during the three last weeks of the semester. These weeks were crucial and a small slip could be devastating. I remember a friend that had 14 final exams. Before the first one, a friend told him that his girlfriend was cheating on him. He failed all the 14 exams in a row and had to redo the year.

breaking down under the pressure 

During my first year in ICADE, my heart was always beating a little faster than normal. Many times students broke down in tears under the pressure. For the most part, this happened to the international students. The Spanish students were less stressed. I believe they have an advantage of being accustomed to long hours, multitasking, handling Spanish authority and delivering top quality work within inhumane deadlines. Internationally, Spaniards are often seen as a very “relaxed” people with a “mañana, mañana” approach to things. This could not be further from reality in ICADE where the most ambitious students in Spain are gathered.

After two years in Madrid, it was time to move on and continue my studies at Northeastern University in Boston. At this point, with experience from three very different educational system, I believe, without a doubt, that the American model is the superior one. At Northeastern, I only have four courses during each semester and the workload of each is distributed evenly, so that, at the end of the semester my final exam only counts for 20% of the total grade. Participation in class is highly valued and students are not afraid of voicing their opinion and asking questions. They thereby train their argumentative skills and are forced to question their knowledge. In comparison to Sweden, but even more compared to Spain, pedagogy is extremely developed in the US and greatest effort is put into facilitating the learning process. I find that professors in the US have a closer relationship to their students than in Spain or Sweden. When my American professor tells the class that he can be reached on his cell phone during the weekend, my Spanish peers almost fall off their chairs.

what it means to be a global citizen

My experience at the different universities have taught me a great deal about different ways of learning and of working. It has also taught me what it really means to be a modern global citizen who can study and work anywhere. Perhaps the most important lesson learned is the importance of adaptation. Over the past couple of years, I have not only been forced to adapt to a new education system to study in a foreign language, but I have had to adapt to a new culture where the esoteric rules often are the key codes for success. All the same, bringing some of the old into the new can be a very good thing. For instance, my Swedishness came in handy during an internship at a large corporation in Spain. Because I was raised in the Swedish egalitarian society that lacks a prominent hierarchical structure, I was not afraid of approaching authorities. The result? It was easier for me to establish good relationships at the company and get involved in more complex tasks with greater responsibilities. And, I hope that perhaps my Spanish-learned multi-tasking and high-stress-coping will come in handy in my new American environment, as well as in the international “real world.”

The mantra for the global citizen is adapt, but also accent: learn and compromise, but also add your own intonation to the local language.

- Barbara Wennerholm is a Swedish student currently studying at Northeastern University in Boston. Her international background began early: nine years at the German School in Stockholm, three years at a Swedish high school, a 4-year International Business program in Spain, and now the USA. Eventually, she hopes to work in the international arena.

We may physically have left Spain behind, but she is still on our minds. The Lattice Group reported from Madrid during the elections, now we return with the news that with Zapatero’s new government, Spain has become the first country in history to have a government consisting of more female than male ministers. Even the defense minister is a woman, and a highly pregnant one at that.

But politics and business are different ballparks. The public sector is famously, in any country, more accommodating to change than the private one. And so it should. If the public sector didn’t follow it’s own rules, what kind of example would they be setting in the first place?

No matter, the reality is still such that, according to a recent article in the Economist entitled “Jobs for the girls,” only 1.4% of corporate Spanish boards are made up by women, compared to the 11% European average (not much of model figure, either, might I add). Except for Italy, Spain is the European country where least women enter the work force. The Economist reports:

“Reconciling family life with work, a struggle anywhere, seems to be harder in Spain than in other countries. Spanish women spend far more time on domestic chores, including childcare, than men. The length of the working day, which is extended into the evening thanks to long lunch breaks, does not help.”

This is where Big Brother comes back into the picture. The Spanish government has decided to follow Norway’s example by passing a law requiring companies to up the female board representation to 40% by 2015, though this may be more symbolic than pragmatic since the companies won’t be penalized for not meeting the goal.

Yet, there is still hope. From our brief Spanish experience, young people appear not to share the macho attitude that the poor numbers reflect. As the Economist notes,

“A bigger share of women in their 20s are joining the workforce in Spain than in America. Eva Castillo, a banker and board-member of Telefónica, a telecoms firm, believes it is only a matter of time before women's lot at Spanish firms improves: ‘It's changing naturally, it's a generational thing.’”

What that means for Spain seems obvious: change is in then air. What that means for America may be more odious: change is in the air, but what kind of change? If less young women are entering the workforce, are American women letting the great leaps they’ve made over the past decades slip?

- Astri 

I didn’t say it. Save the Children did.

According to International Save the Children’s ninth annual Mother’s Index, Sweden places first in the world for mothers. Second and third on the list of 146 countries are Norway and Iceland. Last is Niger. The US comes in on number 27th. And it’s not so strange. While there is no federally funded paid maternity leave in the Unites States, Sweden offers 1.5 years off in parental leave that can be split between the parents as the couple sees fit. Sweden also has universal healthcare, and a highly valued but equally affordable daycare system that is lauded across income brackets. One affluent young mother who we interviewed yesterday puts her 2 and 4 year-old in full-time public daycare because she, who can afford to choose to stay home or hire a private nanny, deems it the best option for her children. Furthermore, parents are paid a so-called “child allowance” of 950 Swedish crowns (about 157 US dollars) per child per month up until the child is 16 years old.

Beyond policies, young mothers in Sweden assert that, as mothers, they are met with great respect professionally. Our recent interviewee even claimed that she has been given greater responsibility and more interesting job offers now that she is a mother! This should come as a big surprise to anyone who has a clue about the situation for mothers in America, where motherhood—or even the prospect of future motherhood— typically serves as a negative stigma in the hiring process.

I spoke to my own mother last night and was left oogly-eyed after the conversation. My mother has five children, but she is also the Secretary General of a sizable international non-profit organization. How does that equation compute? She told me that she was given lengthy maternity leave in Sweden already in the 1970’s, and, perhaps most remarkably, that her employers guaranteed that she could return to her jobs even after several years of leave to take care of my handicapped sister, and to travel with my Diplomat father to his posts abroad. Her basic message was: “I was always able, and encouraged, to keep my hand in, to always know that I had a career to go back to.”

Perhaps that is the main reason that Sweden continues to be such a fantastic place to be a mom: you’re not penalized professionally for procreating. What a novel idea.

- Astri 

photo by Erik R. Bishoff on Flickr under Creative Commons License 

A Retrospective of Gross Generalizations…

Over the past couple of months, we have traveled to New York, Madrid, Paris and Stockholm. By conducting in-depth interviews with university students and young professionals in each of the countries we travel to, we are learning valuable lessons about how working and living is dealt with differently in each place.

We began our quest in New York City, the capital of a great-many industries and dreams. What we encountered were ambitious men and women who had a startlingly traditional perspective on family life. Budding businessmen were typically looking for stay-at-home wives to raise their children while they pursued grueling careers. Their female peers were either aiming for a big family and a big career (but hadn’t considered how these aspirations would fit together in reality) or were set on staying home with their children. Daycare is the devil, didn’t you know?

We have come to realize that compared to their European peers, Americans are horribly bad at asking for things. They never seem to make any demands for the kind of provisions, like sick leave, vacation and parental leave, that have been taken for granted in Europe for years. But, American young professionals are certainly vocal about one thing: flexibility! When asked what could make an employer attractive to them, the unanimous answer was flexible work hours, and the ability to work from home. Are they actually asking their employers for this? Perhaps not. For many, flexibility still seems to be an unrealized dream.

In Spain, we were met by a society that appears to be collectively attempting to pull itself up from of its own macho past. With new, and by many considered radical, laws passing to ensure gender equity in the workplace and such novelties as paternity leave, the pressure to change is coming from the top and shooting down into all levels of society. Tradition seems, in many cases, thrown to the wind. We were met with a slew of young people who ruled marriage out altogether. But perhaps of most interest was how success appears to be measured among the Spanish urban youth. They did not want to work endless hours in exchange for endless paychecks—which their American peers appear to do. They all talked about the importance of leisure time and of a “good life,” which often entailed dreaming of being cemented solidly in the middle class as a “funcionario”—civil servant—with stable work hours and employment for life but without the prospect of huge pay increase over time. Stability over mobility, apparently.

France is funny. In a society with all kinds of public provisions in place to support working families, we were somewhat surprised to find that traditional cultural attitudes are still strong. Women and men are different, point blank. Most Frenchies don’t seem to have any qualms about saying so either. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that men work and women stay at home. No, dual incomes are needed to maintain a Paris lifestyle and Parisians seem to think stay at home wives are a thing of the past. That is not the same as thinking women doing most of the domestic duties is a thing of the past, mind you. But guess what they cited as the ideal childcare arrangement for young children? Public daycare.

And now Sweden. Here we are, in the so called parental paradise where maternity leave is generous and paternity leave is touted as intrinsic to a man’s personal fulfillment. We’re only just starting our interviews here, so we’ll have to hold off on our gross generalizations for a little while longer…

 - Astri

Artists Seek Stability and Support Just Like the Rest of Us 

This week, the unofficial theme at The Lattice Group’s new headquarters in springy Stockholm, Sweden, is ART: we recently learned that spotlighted artist Sigrid Sandstrom was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, we interviewed advertising art director and artist Gustaf von Arbin, and just last night we watched “Who Does She Think She Is?,” a new documentary about female artists who are also mothers.

All of this art business is somewhat new territory for me. First of all, I don’t have a creative bone in my body—let’s just say, I was always little too good at coloring inside the lines. I’ve always seen artists as brilliant fringe members of society who shun the banality of the “real world” for the passionate excesses of creative freedom, and then rush off to commit suicide or cut-off their ears. In my mind, artists are deep and tortured and self-absorbed. They eschew the ordinary. They certainly don’t do diapers.

As is often the case, I’m dead wrong. First, take Gustaf von Arbin, a twenty-something Swedish born artist who is leaving a mark on New York City figuratively, as an art director, as well as literally, with his inspired street installations (pictured). Gustaf looks every bit as hip and free-spirited as the caricature of artists I’ve long had in mind. Which is why I was so shocked to hear that for him “being more creative comes from being stable.” According to Gustaf, while “there’s more inspiration” in fast-paced, unpredictable New York City, “you can’t really take in inspiration if the bucket is full.” Like Sandstrom, Gustaf longs for the stability that Sweden’s security system provides all its citizens: the guarantee of a basic quality of life regardless of occupation.

In the United States, there are no guarantees. This keeps the art world democratic and on its toes: he who suffers most createth better, right? According to Fractured Atlas, a non-profit that provides services for artists and arts organizations, there are about 300,000 uninsured artists in the United States. Now, those are people who are really suffering for their art. They must be brilliant! Putting aside romantic notions of starving artists, however, Gustaf’s desire for stability begins to make sense. After all, if you spend your time scrounging to afford health care, pay the bills, and keep from being evicted, how much time do you have to focus on creating art?

And what happens when on top of those everyday concerns you throw a few kids into the mix? This is the topic of “Who Does She Think She Is?,” a new film brought to you by director Pamela Tanner Boll (winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary for her Executive Producer role on “Born into Brothels”). Boll explores the lives of five women artists who are also mothers, two professions that pay extremely poorly or not at all. While jobs that require caregiving, like nursing and teaching, have traditionally been filled by women and very poorly paid, I always thought the art world was an equal opportunity employer—you just had to be crazy enough to want to join it. As far as pay, you could potentially make millions—you just had to be talented enough. But as the film makes painfully clear, it also helps to have a penis.

Female artists in museums are few and far between: out of 399 works in the permanent collection of the MoMA, 19 are by women artists. The contemporary art scene isn’t much better. Though statistics are hard to come by, in a Village Voice article oh so cleverly titled “Where the Girls Aren’t," Jerry Saltz counted that out of 297 one-person shows at 125 well-known New York galleries in the fall of 2006, only 23 percent were solos by women. Two years later, now writing for New York Magazine, Saltz “checked out every show in every ground-floor gallery in Chelsea from 18th Street to 26th Street. Of 74 solos, only 16 percent were by women.”

So what gives? “Who Does She Think She Is?” shows how torn some women are between the deeply self-less act of being a mother and the necessarily self-involved practice of being an artist. I can’t help but wonder: do male artists who are also fathers hold themselves up to the same parenting standards as these female artists? Moreover, women artists are viewed by some gallerists as a poor investment—they might have children and stop producing art for a time. But a similar devaluation of a male artist’s potential career would never be made. These stereotypes, along with the old-boys-club among curators and museum directors, need to go so that society can benefit from having the voice of all its creative-types available. It would be great if those creative-types could also afford to go to the doctor now and again. I may never be one of them, no matter how much red wine I drink, but I definitely want the opportunity to wear my smart-looking glasses, stroke my chin, and ponder their contributions.

- Vetta

Interview with Pamela Tanner Boll coming soon!

The artist Sigrid Sandstrom, whom The Lattice Group recently featured in an interview, was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Wow. Big wow. And congratulations!

To read the full interview with Sigrid Sandstrom go here.  

Stay tuned for new lessons learned in the land of the midnight sun...

On April 24, Congress failed to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, named after a Goodyear employee who sued when she learned through an anonymous tip that she was being paid significantly less than her male counterparts doing the same job. Though she initially won the lawsuit, the Supreme Court overturned the decision because she had not initiated legal action within six months of the first instance of discrimination. Goodyear forbids employees from discussing salaries, so how she was supposed to find out about the discrimination earlier than she did is a mystery.

Check out the 5-minute documentary for a better understanding of the case. It’s a bit melodramatic and not exactly non-partisan, but West Wing hunk Bradely Whiteford hosts and who doesn’t love Bradely Whiteford?  

Democrats, including Senators Obama and Clinton, supported the legislation, while all but six Republicans voted against it. Senator McCain opposed the bill citing potentially frivolous lawsuits harmful to business. Instead of fair pay legislation, McCain advocates that women get more “education and training.” I thought women were doing pretty well on that front, seeing as they make up 56% of college graduates these days, but I suppose there’s always room for improvement.

In any case, this shouldn’t be about statistics or loopholes. If someone with equal education and training proves to a court that they have been paid less because of their gender or race or age (all of which the Fair Pay Act would have covered), they should be entitled to compensation.

You can sign a petition in support of the Fair Pay Act here. 

Read the full New York Times article here. Read an editorial on Huffington Post by Joan Blades and Lilly Ledbetter herself here. 

and wireless technology is not just an easier-to-use phone

Recently, I read an article that referenced a groundbreaking historical event: the birth of the World Wide Web in 1994.  To my utter confusion, I realized that I remembered that year! Holy shit, I’m old. Back in my day, we had “dial-up” internet service. And AOL’s ubiquitous “You’ve Got Mail!” do-hickey was cool. And to actually access the Internet, you were relegated behind a clunky desktop; the bloody thing was heavy and so required some sort of apparatus to hold it up, like a desk. How terribly passé. 

Of course, that’s all ancient history now. For example, I’m writing this very blog at Gate 62 in Stockholm-Arlanda Airport in Sweden. I’ll probably finish it while flying somewhere above France, upload it when I get to Spain, and then patiently await the flood of laudatory comments from all over the world to pour in about five seconds later. Okay, so that last bit might not happen, but the fact that it could happen is, well, really cool. And, I just learned that soon I might be able to post my blogs in-flight via high-speed internet connection on airplanes (some airlines already offer this mind-blowing service; Lufthansa became the first commercial aircraft to do so in 2004).

As futuristic-fantastic as all this may be, technological advances are happening so fast that most of us don’t really have the time to think about their long-term consequences. When our boss sends us an email at 1 a.m on a Saturday night, we simply put down our beers, break out our trusty Blackberries, and shoot off a quick reply. Short, sweet, easy. But let’s not kid ourselves; long-term consequences there will be, my friends.
Last week in “Our Nomadic Future,” the rational wonder-kids at The Economists noted that “a century ago some people saw the car merely as a faster horse, yet it led to entirely new cities, with suburbs and sprawl, to new retail cultures (megastores, drive-throughs), new developments (oil) and new health threats (sloth, obesity).”

Apparently, “wireless technology is not just an easier-to-use phone.” What is it then, and more importantly, what will it lead to? The article hypothesizes that, “The car divided cities into work and home areas; wireless technology may mix them up again." In fact, “Already, architects are redesigning offices and universities: more flexible spaces for meeting people, fewer private enclosures for sedentary work.” Great! Lattice-friendly music to my ears!

But wait. What about parallels to the “sloth” and “obesity” parts of that last batch of technological breakthroughs? The Economist cautions that while “digital nomadism will liberate ever more knowledge workers form the cubicle prisons of Dilbert cartoons […] the old tyranny of place could become a new tyranny of time.”  To all of you who actually have answered an email at 1 a.m. on a Saturday night, this is not a particularly novel revelation. These days we’re all online all the time; we’re always reachable and so we’re always potentially working.

The Economists’ more interesting and less easily ameliorated insight is that permanent mobile connectivity “might bring you much closer to family and friends, but it may make it harder to bring in outsiders. It might isolate cliques.” Sociologists (think Robert Putnam and his distinction between “bridging” and “bonding” social capital in "Bowling Alone"), “fret about constant e-mailers and texters losing the everyday connections to casual acquaintances or strangers who may be sitting next to them in the café or on the bus.” As knowledge workers become part of a truly well connected global community, what happens to those that don’t have the same opportunities to plug-in? In a country, and a world, where the gap between rich and poor continues to grow, more efforts need to be made to ensure equal access to these potentially liberating new technologies.

I searched for organizations that promote equitable internet and computer access, but didn’t find much. Anyone know of any? Anyone want to start one?

For now, check out:  

InternetEquality.org
Creative Commons and Science Common

- Vetta

horse carriage by Eliya on flick.com under creative commons license. 

“If your husband has a problem with you earning more money than he does, then you didn’t pick the right husband.”

This is what I was told, point blank, by a young French girl last week. Her answer makes so much sense. It seems so self-evident. Doesn’t it? The thing is, it’s not.

Over the past couple of months we have conducted in-depth interviews with over 70 people, both men and women, and the answers relating to the importance of who earns more or less vary greatly depending on whom you ask. In the United States, where we focused our interviews on Middlebury College students and New York City professionals, the resounding answer from men was that they would prefer to earn more than their “future hypothetical spouse,” while the women seemed uncertain, expressing concern that their menfolk would be uncomfortable if their salaries were higher and their jobs more prestigious. Really, now?

I am Swedish, and though I have lived most of my life outside of my home country, and the majority of it in the United States, I have been raised in a very “Swedish” way. That means that I not only believe in and hope for equality, I expect and demand it. And if you don’t give it to me, I’m going to put up a fight. Sweden is a country that, after all, almost voted a “Feminist Party” into parliament a few years back. It also means that I have been raised with male friends who cook and clean as naturally as my female friends and who look forward to taking lengthy paternity leave when they have children. When I was home in Sweden for a brief visit this year, I saw more young fathers alone on the subway with babies in their laps and bottles in their hands than I saw mothers pushing prams. This prompted my American brother-in-law to exclaim, after a full week in our Northern capital, “Look! A woman with a baby carriage!”

Beyond my national flare, I seem to have been raised, as my colleague Vetta particularly remarks, as “a boy.” In other words, I think in ways that contemporary culture, American as well as Swedish, attribute to men. While most of my girlfriends admit that they thought they would be at least somewhat supported by men in their lives, I can honestly say that I have never thought this way. I never considered how my earning power would compare to the earnings of my future mate. And I never saw myself in the arms of a provider. I thought I would provide. For myself, that is. And the man of my youthful dreams is no distant bacon-bringer (though I would love it if he fried me some), but an intelligent partner who pushes me to excel professionally as well as personally and who is both my harshest critic and my greatest supporter. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not looking for a “house-husband.” I’m convinced that whomever I choose to marry will be a provider in his own right. We will provide together. And to me, providing means emotional as well as financial contribution to the family unit.

I realize that my expectations may not be realistic. If you take a look at the statistics on the prevailing gender-wage gap, they prove that my girlfriends are right to think that they will earn less than their husbands. The odds that I earn more than my mate, or than my male colleagues for that matter, are not in my favor. The gender-wage gap bothers me immensely, of course. It is completely unacceptable. But equally shocking is the fact that my male peers would be uncomfortable earning less than their female mates. This reflects deep-lying, and in my mind disappointing, gender roles within the relationship:  men want to be in the power position (because, let’s face it, money is power) and are uncomfortable with their lady standing on equal or higher ground. And a lot of women seem to be totally fine with this. In fact, many seem to prefer it. That folks, makes me uncomfortable. Just as much as I find it unnerving that men don't want their female partners earning more, I think it's strange that women expect men to provide for them. Let's call it the perpetual double-edged sword of the gender debate.

Will you believe me when I say that I never thought about this before?

Now that I do, I conclude the following:

A.)    I would be comfortable earning more, but would not prefer to earn astronomically more, that my future hypothetical spouse.
B.)    I would be comfortable earning leas, but would not prefer to earn astronomically less, than my future hypothetical spouse.
C.)    A and B are important because I believe that comparable earning power is vital in ensuring a healthy power balance in any relationship.
D.)    I would not like to be with a future hypothetical spouse who did not also agree with A and B.
E.)    Don’t worry guys. None of you have to date me.

- Astri 

Photo by Thomas Hawk on Flickr under Creative Commons License.  

For those of you who have been scouring the work-life conflict section of The Lattice Group’s website, positively aghast at what the working world has in store, and desperately looking for a way to delay the real world-- fear not, we've got something for you!

Apply for a 2008 Delaying the Real World Fellowship. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Apply. Win. Delay the Real World.

Good luck! If you win, I’d like a postcard from Timbuktu or wherever, thanks.

- Vetta

postcard by robayre on flickr.com under creative commons license.

As many of you may have noticed and perhaps judged us for (it’s okay, we understand), The Lattice Group is directly aimed at college students and college-educated young professionals. This group – we, probably you – is privileged. We have expensive degrees and support systems and social networks and, most luxuriously of all, options.

We know all this. When we started The Lattice Group, however, we weighed the awkwardness we felt about addressing the problems of a comparatively privileged group – so called “first world” problems – against the following:

1. We just graduated from college. A liberal arts college at that (read: we have no practical skills to offer). But we know this group. We have access to this group. I don’t feel patronizing or sanctimonious trying to help this group because, ultimately, I’m just trying to help myself.
2. It is often the privileged groups in society that determine the social values that ultimately yield the public policies, laws, and norms that everyone in society is subjected to. One day, many of you will be employers or politicians or upstanding citizens. And I sincerely hope that what you learn about work-life conflict on these virtual pages influences how you treat your employees and fight for your constituents.

Business Council for Peace – Young Leadership Committee

Business Councils for Peace helps women in regions of conflict and post-conflict build businesses to sustain their families and strengthen their abilities to foster peace.

The initial goal of the Bpeace YLC is to organize an annual fundraiser to be held in mid-September, which will raise money for the Bpeace Economic Development Fund, a $1 million revolving loan for use by the women entrepreneurs they serve.

Learn more, sign up on their facebook group here.

 - Vetta

Growing up, my mother, whom I love dearly, sent me some pretty confusing messages. We’re Russian immigrants, so I was to work damn hard, go to a good college, and become a lawyer. I was to be smart, but not too smart. I was also to marry a doctor, a Jewish one. We were to have several children and a large house. I was to control the household (like my mom does), but let my husband believe he runs the show (like my dad does).

Being the uncooperative person that I am, I managed to get into a good college only to choose sociology as a major. I talked my mom’s ear off about poverty, racism, the ludicrously unequal state of our public school system. She finally realized that my chosen profession would most likely not come with a signing bonus. But that was okay, she reasoned: my husband would bring in the big bucks.

It’s hard to admit this, but despite my no-nonsense, “duh, I’m a feminist” front, I’ve always secretly agreed with my mom. I’ve always believed that my future spouse would earn more money than me. I told myself that this is because I want to work in the non-profit sector. Surely, any man I met, working in any other field, would earn more money than the pittance public defenders, livable wage activists, and human rights watchers are doled out.

The truth is, my real view was based on far less innocent calculations.  Part of the reason I allowed myself to dream of making a difference is that I didn’t think I’d have to make the money. I still wanted the fancy car, the nice house, and the bling; I grew up in Los Angeles, after all.  But I thought that my spouse would do the dirty work: the boring corporate law, the tedious hedge fund managing. I would be the do-gooder, morally compensating for my spouses’ gross over-compensation.

The other reason that I thought my spouse would bring home the proverbial bacon is that I never believed I could find a man who would be okay with earning less money than me. And I still don’t think I know an American man who would honestly – really, truly, honestly – be completely fine with earning less. Ladies, you may be vehemently shaking your heads, but have you ever point-blank asked your boyfriend if he would mind it if you earned a much bigger salary? I bet he hesitates. Or worse, defensively answers that he would “love” it. (From our own interviews, American men appear to be fairly traditional in this sense; most believe that they will earn more money than their future spouses. French men, on the other hand, more frequently answer that since Paris is so expensive, the more money their partner earns the better).

I’ve recently met a young gent whose chosen career path is bound to make him happy, and totally underpaid. Meanwhile, I've caught the business bug and feel I’d like to make a dent in both the for-profit and non-profit world one day. It’s strangely empowering to know that somewhere in the world there exists a man who wouldn’t care if I earned more money. But it’s also terrifying: could I actually achieve the kind of monetary success I want on my own? Knowing that it would be me putting in those extra hours at the office, do I really want as much bling as I once thought I did? Would I feel comfortable not being the primary caregiver, a role I’ve been alternately groomed for and expected to reject?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. But at least now I realize that until recently – and despite my equal rights rhetoric – I was playing into a crappy and antiquated gender dynamic: male breadwinner, female helpmate. For whatever reason, I had reconciled myself to having a secondary career. But that’s not what I want. And I don’t think that men – cultural expectations aside – want the pressure of being the primary provider either. Perhaps we all need to make sure that we can provide the lifestyle that we want on our own, have the confidence to do it, and demand to live in a society that makes it possible for both men and women to work and have a family. The bigger challenge? Mom.

- Vetta 

"A Pint Don't Cost Twenty Dollars" photo by SimplySchmoopie on flickr.com under creative commons license.

Bling T-Shirt photo by waving cat on flickr.com under creative commons license.  

Americans push, Spaniards nudge 

Today, the secretary of the elementary school where I work asked me to come to the office so he could update my file—he needed my telephone number and year of birth. Jokingly, I asked him to guess (my age, that is). Twenty-nine, he replied. In any other situation I might have been offended, but here in Spain, it’s almost unheard of for people to have graduated from college and obtained a job before the age of twenty-five. He was quite surprised to hear that I’m only twenty-two.

In America, there is a palpable push to get out into the work world after college. Students who choose to take an extra year to graduate are derisively referred to as being on the “five-year plan,” nudge nudge, wink wink, as if these students are somehow lazier or dumber than their peers.

I think this push is partially due to the financial burden that college students must bear in America. The absurdly high cost of higher education in America drives many people into debt for decades after graduation. For many students, graduating without a job is not just socially frowned-upon; it is financially impossible.

Still, many people who graduated with me, who could seemingly afford to travel around for a bit after college and bum off their parents, instead choose to go into high-paying jobs in finance, law and consulting. To me, that suggests that there’s still a stigma for those students who graduate without a job. Eye brows rise, seeming to ask, “How low was his GPA? What did she wear to the interview? Did he even go to the Career Services Office?”—all of which imply the bigger question: Why did you dedicate the last four years of your life, as well as $160,000, to studying a subject in college if you don’t know what to do with your life?

Here in Spain, the push to get a job after graduation is less like a push and more of a gentle nudge. The youngest teacher at my school is 25. He started just a couple months after I did; this is his first job. He lives with his parents and sister, and just bought his first car. In America, we might kindly say that he is a late-bloomer. But in Spain, he is one of the only people around my age that I know who has accomplished so much. Many university students in Spain take five to seven years to finish a degree that in America you could complete in three or four. Very few hold summer jobs; most live at home well into their twenties, moving out when they marry. And marriage and babies also come late. Seldom do I see parents of young children at my school who look under thirty.

The reasons for these differences are easy to spot: university is cheap; housing is expensive.  Failing classes at university is not abnormal—in fact, it’s almost expected. Because so many students attend university in their hometown, living with mom and dad is an obvious and customary choice. They are young until they are old.  While Americans tend to spend their twenties trying on adulthood for size, experimenting with jobs and cities, playing dress-up with ties and pumps, Spaniards actually enjoy their twenties the way they enjoyed their teens. And once they reach that point in their early thirties where they’ve finally secured a job and a spouse, they are more or less set in life. A Spaniard doesn’t ask herself what her next career move is, or where it will take her, but rather “Why would I work more, or differently, when I can afford to feed my family, maintain my house and car, and live at the beach on the weekends?”

Suffice is to say, I don’t think that either culture is inherently better than the other. But I do think that Spanish culture gives young people who want to break the socio-professional mold a lot more wiggle room when it comes to starting jobs and families sooner or later than their peers. It’s that wiggle room that I’m taking advantage of right now—living abroad working just twelve hours a week. My mom still asks when I’m going to get a real job; but in Spain, at 22, I’m way ahead of the game.

- Bethany Holmes graduated from Middlebury College in 2007. She is currently working in Spain, but plans on returning to the motherland sometime in the fall of 2008. Staying true to the Spanish way, she plans on moving in with her parents and delaying adulthood for as long as possible.

 Jersey helps workers with families, finally 

Today, proud NJers have more to boast than Garden State and its revoltingly endearing mastermind Zach Braff. This is because on April 7, the great state of New Jersey did a great thing. On April 7, the State Senate passed Family Leave Insurance, making New Jersey the third state to let workers take paid leave from work to care for a sick relative or a newborn child.

As devout Lattice blog readers know, federal law already allows workers in companies with at least 50 employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid family leave. To anyone who needs to care for a child or sick relative and still put food on the table, the federal law is, to put it kindly, completely worthless.

New Jersey’s law is the opposite of worthless. In fact, for workers who need to take leave, it is worth up to $524 per week (two-thirds of their salary) for up to six weeks. New Jersey’s law isn’t worth as much as, say, California’s law, which allows for up to $917 a week, but is worth twice as much as what Washington State will offer starting in 2009.

It has taken New Jersey over a decade to get this law passed. Interviewing people in France, where three months of paid family leave for mothers is the norm and largely taken for granted, this is fairly disheartening. On the other hand, whereas fathers in France are only entitled to two weeks of paternity leave, New Jersey’s family leave is pleasantly gender neutral. Both men and women have the option of taking part in the lives of their newborns.

Of course, just because both men and women can take paid leave doesn’t mean they will. In California, women account for 80 percent of those who take advantage of the paid leave. Despite this lingering and personally confounding inequity, I agree with Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeny, D-Gloucester, who says of New Jersey’s law, “It does the right thing for working men and women.”

Businesses and many NJ Senate Republicans disagree. Pointing to a slowing economy, Assemblyman Jay Webber, R-Morris, says “The ramifications of this bill on New Jersey taxpayers and businesses will be devastating. Not only will its impact harm the very people it is intended to help, but we will lose more jobs as well."

Oh, yeah? Prove it. The New Jersey law will be financed by employee payroll deductions that will cost every worker in New Jersey a maximum of 64 cents a week, or $33 a year. This seems somehow short of devastating to me. Personally, I’m getting pretty sick of American politicians and businesses immediately employing scare tactics when talk turns to providing benefits to workers. You will have to sew-up your own stiches if we allow universal health care! The economy will collapse if we offer public child-care for hardworking parents!

Actually, I just took out money from a bank in Paris, bought a delicious baguette, and pondered how the economy manages to function in a country that provides paid parental leave, child care, and health care. Thing is, it does. Isn't it time that Americans realize that it’s okay to make some demands of their employers and their government? It's okay to ask for help when you need it. Businesses do it all the time through a whole litany of tax breaks, incentives, and subsidies.

Hats-off to you NJers. I may never envy your grammatical innovations (“going down the shore” anyone?), but I surely envy this.

- Vetta

This legislation has not been reported on very heavily. But you can access a NYTimes article here and an article from South Jersey News Online here.

Zach Braff photo by jeffpulver on flickr.com under creative commons license.  

Warm Online Princesses and Corporate Ice-Queens

As a pale sun continues to flicker over a drizzly Paris, I find myself reading more and more interesting articles inside through online sources. In a New York Times article entitled, “Sorry Boys, This Is Our Domain,” Stephanie Rosenbloom writes about the largest growing group of internet content creators: teenage girls. The staple image of the pimply, pale computer geek seems on the way out as herds of hip adolescent girls stampede the online scene. According to a recent study published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, it’s the girl bloggers who are racking up major percentiles. But this new wave has yet to break over the computer industry,

Though the teen numbers suggest that these stats are about to change, it may not just be a matter of waiting out the generational shift. The article points out that though girls master existing software and create web content of their own, they are not necessarily engaging with the hard-science of computing. Why?

“Some scholars argue, girls are the dominant online content creators because both sexes are influenced by cultural expectations.” In other words, girls are traditionally taught to be communicative, to “tell stories about themselves,” to seek responses from others. On the flipside, boys are trained to be less emotional and more fact-oriented. That could explain why they are still the ones working on developing the new technology while their female peers focus on creating web sites that act as social forums and platforms for personal expression. And we’re seeing a lot of it. “This would be called the feminization of the Internet,” Pat Gill, the interim director for the Institute for Communications Research and an associate professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign states. But there is one area of web content that boys still outdo girls in: posting videos. Why? “Videos are often less about personal expression and more about impressing others.”

I guess those lingering gender stereotypes are near impossible to shake.

The whole article is definitely worth a read. Access it here.

Another interesting read can be found in Conde Nast’s April 2008 issue of Portfolio. In “Sexism,” Harriet Rubin writes about how sexism is commonly considered “gone” when it is still very much around. In fact, Rubin writes, “While women have made huge professional gains in the past three decades, progress now appears to have slowed or stalled. In some cases, it's even backsliding. Key indicators such as pay, board seats, and corporate-officer posts all reflect a leveling off or drop in recent years.”

Rubin argues that the general consensus that we are done with sexism may in fact be what is perpetuating it, “because of all the overt signs of progress—the Clinton candidacy, a woman speaker of the House, female Fortune 500 C.E.O.'s—the barriers women face today are more subtle and therefore harder to overcome. Basically, the popular perception is that women have made it, so there's nothing to discuss. Therefore, if you're not a success, it's about you and your abilities (or lack of ability), because we can all certainly see that women have reached the top.”

Interesting.

She adds that no one, especially those that should have something to say about it—such as high-power female execs—want to talk about it. Sexism and feminism are taboo subjects. We experience the same thing on our own small Lattice scale everyday, as both male and female interview subjects are reluctant to admit that the status quo is anything less than perfectly equal, while simultaneously expressing clear understanding that it is not.

When making up boards nowadays, diversity is the magical word. But, as Mark Walsh, a venture capitalist and co-founder of Air America Radio is quotes as saying in the Portfolio article, “the offer of a board seat typically goes to the nonwhite men—Latinos and African Americans. We think, Great, we've done diversity.’ He concludes, ‘Women have taken a backseat.’” This is, of course, a hot topic as the fight for the Democratic candidacy becomes increasingly fierce. What is harder for Americans to swallow: a black candidate or a female one?

Perhaps the article's most interesting point is the fact that though sexism prevails, femininity appears to be becoming increasingly valued in the workplace. But only by, and for, men. Rubin writes:

“Where Wall Street's drug of choice used to be cocaine, today it could be estrogen. A hedge fund broker working at SAC Capital in Connecticut sued his boss in late October for allegedly demanding that he take estrogen to become a more successful trader…Psychologist Carol Gilligan notes the irony of this theory. ‘Emotional intelligence is all the rage these days, but not so long ago, women were told they could never be trusted to be intelligent because they were so emotional. What men have done is to seize on the women's movement, in particular on some of the insights that came from the study of women, and adopt them as their own,’ says Gilligan.”

Women, on the other hands, are still buttoning up their pant-suits and jutting out their elbows in order to make it. “It figures, doesn't it? Women are turning their backs on femininity just as it's becoming a big profit center.” Rubin adds that, “plenty of outposts of traditional femininity can still be found in corporate America. Many executives are still openly emoting, laughing and hugging each other, dressing themselves in pink shirts and cashmere sweaters…Of course, they're all men.”

Why is "femininity" valued when it is taken on by men while it continues to be looked on unfavorably when exhibited by women? If I wore pink cashmere and kissed and hugged my co-workers I have an inkling the reception would be less than laudatory. I’d be “Legally Blonde” and probably regally rejected.

Definitely read the whole article, here.

- Astri 

computer girl photo on Flickr by herbstkind under Creative Commons License.  

business casual picture on Flickr by irenekaoru under Creative Commons License.

Robbed of the chance to care?

In my mind, the parenthood debate very much revolves around the idea that the modern father has been robbed of the opportunity of fatherhood. For months, I have lamented the unfair fate of fathers everywhere who must work such long days under societal pressure to be breadwinners that they have no chance to see their children. I have lauded paternity leave and talked about the importance of father-baby-bonding. Not once did I stop to consider that fathers simply may not want to spend that much time with their children. Even writing that makes me feel uneasy. It cannot be so. Fathers’ century-long distance from family affairs is the result of a system that puts the father out in the cold by making the mother the primary caretaker of children and home…right?

Imagine my surprise when a young French father of two recently told us that he couldn’t imagine spending even a whole day with his children. That he, “couldn’t stand it. It’s too much work.” Adding, “It’s too boring.” He also commented, equally happily, that his wife does more of the caregiving. Yet, he is married to a stockbroker who earns more money than he does, so it’s not likely that she has more time for those extra parental duties. Does she just care more? Can it be true that men care less about their children than women do? Or are they just given less opportunity to care?

Let’s suppose that how much you “care” isn’t dependent on some biological predilection. Let’s suppose instead that how much you “care” depends on the level of responsibility that you feel for your child, and what shape that responsibility takes. A young mother typically spends more time with a newborn child than a young father does. This is commonly the case because a new mother is more likely to take maternity leave than a new father is. For the crucial first months of the child’s life, when the baby is at its absolute most vulnerable and needs around the clock care, the mother is typically the one providing most of the caring. The father with no paternity leave misses out on fully experiencing the child’s complete dependence on him on a purely physical level. To give baths, feed, change diapers, burp, put to sleep…and so on. The man with no paternity leave cares for the child in a more detached way: by providing the necessary funds for caring. This paternity leave-less father comes home from a long day of work to a child that he has little experience physically caring for.  He becomes the mother’s  “helper” more than someone who takes equal responsibility. This does not mean that this father loves his child any less. Not at all. My theory is simply that because he is less accustomed to physically caring on a daily basis, he is also less likely to appreciate that kind of care.

practice makes perfect

Let me return to something else that the young French father said, that spending a full day with his children is “too much work.” A parent, whether a mother or the father, who does not have the opportunity to be the primary physical caregiver is less likely to be “good” at those daily tasks. A parent who returns immediately to the office may therefore feel inadequate once they actually do the caring. They simply may not know how. Practice makes perfect, remember? As our professional spotlight Maria Campbell said in an interview , “I was more terrified than I realized and I ran back to the office…at work, I could do it. I felt like the day was so much easier here in the office!”  Maria Campbell is good at her job. But taking care of a baby was new and scary and difficult. Maybe the French father’s reluctance to spend time with his children stems from a feeling that he just isn’t “good” at the child thing. That it’s just “too hard.” And why is it too hard? Perhaps because he never had the chance to really try it. Every child is different, after all, and if you don’t know all the ins and outs of what makes your child cry, or how your child likes his/her milk or blanky…well, then maybe it isn’t so easy to spend a whole day with them. Such a day might actually prove incredibly frustrating.

I believe that if fathers had the chance to play the part of primary caregiver for their children in the first months of their lives, it would make a big impact on their future filial relationship. My father took five months of paternity leave for my sister and I in Sweden in the early eighties and he raves about it daily. In fact, he even wrote a book about it, called “En Pappa’s Dagbok,” which translates as “A Dad’s Diary.” He is convinced that those first months were crucial in creating a close bond with us, and, perhaps more importantly, of feeling that his responsibility for caring for us is as great as my mother’s.

I think it is disturbing to hear a father say he doesn’t want to spend time with his children. If a mother said it, we would probably accuse her of being denatured. Yet, with the current status quo, a French father can say it without the fear of raising too many eyebrows. Well, mine are certainly raised.

This is not an attack on men. This is a cry for a system that allows greater paternal involvement early on in children’s lives. Because I fundamentally believe that fatherhood is as important as motherhood and that fathers suffer from a system that discriminates against them by not allowing them to “care” equally. Let’s stop talking about maternity leave and start talking about parental leave.

- Astri

photo from Flickr by Torsten Mangner under Creative Commons License. 

In a Washington Post Business blog entitled "After a Baby, Full Time or Part," on March 31, 2008, Amy Joyce writes about the increasing trend of women working part-time in order to keep their hands in the working world while managing a family. Still, many American families don’t have a choice about whether both parents work full time or not. The cost of living is so high that two paychecks are often a necessity. Another thing that can make ambitious A-player weary of part-timing is that part-time workers’ earnings commonly fall into the category of “supplemental income” which can quickly become equated (in practice and in mind) with “supplemental career.” In other words, part-time workers face the challenge of having their career ambitions taken seriously both in the office and at home; after all, the largest paycheck takes priority.

Or does it?

The article mentions a young mother who considered working part-time but couldn’t because the family’s insurance was tied to her job. If the mother’s paycheck was as important, apparently even more important, as the father’s, why did the family never consider that the father cut down his work hours?

 “Women are ‘redesigning careers to be a lattice instead of a ladder,’ said Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute. If you view your career as a ladder and you jump off, Galinsky said, it's hard to get back on. The idea of a lattice implies more flexibility,” Joyce writes. Galinsky articulates the cornerstone of The Lattice Group’s philosophy, yet she too seems to dismiss half the population. If part-time workers are forcing us all to rethink how we view working in favor of more flexible and tailored career paths, why can’t men be in on it too? Why is the lattice a female option rather than a human one?

Joyce probably never mentions the option for men since women are the overwhelming majority of part-time workers. They are, after all, typically the ones who shoulder the primary caregiving responsibilities at home. But isn’t that traditional domestic image changing with the evolution of the so-called “modern man,” dressed in an apron with a spit-cloth over his shoulder? Or is that just a popular myth, a faraway dream for equality-chasers like myself? I love children and hope to be able to spend a great deal of time with my own when I have them. That means that I may very well consider part-time work in my future. What I don’t understand is why the father of my children shouldn’t have the right to feel the same way. Why is my career, by these standards, probably going to be less important than his and, on the flipside, why is his role as a parent, at least in society’s eyes, going to be less important than mine?

- Astri 

 How does the US and Spain Compare?

Before I went to Madrid, my thoughts on Spain were very stereotypical and included dark men with slicked-back hair, firey tempers and machismo attitudes. After four weeks among Madrileños, my mind is completely changed. I now see Spain as a country that on one hand has a heavy cultural heritage from a recently complicated political history as well as from the strong presence of the Catholic Church, but on the other hand as a country that is working very actively to make significant societal changes, especially when it comes to issues relating to gender equity. Take the Law of Equality for instance, or the new federally paid paternity leave (which may be short, but at least it’s a step in the right direction).

Granted, Madrid is not Spain. Madrid is the country’s capital and thus by definition it is more international, and often more progressive, than other areas. But the Lattice Group’s target group is the college-educated young people who live primarily in urban areas. Comparing this same segment of society between several nations generates a sense of the differences in attitudes between countries among this particular demographic.

Here are some highlights of how what I learned in Spain contrasts with what I learned in the USA:

• Several of the students and young professionals that we interviewed in Spain, male as well as female, felt unsure about whether or not they would ever marry. Meanwhile, in the United States, we only received one answer (out of over 30 interviews) that marriage (or long-term partnership) was not a definite plan for the future—everyone counted on getting hitched! In Spain, not a single person answered that they wanted to marry before thirty, thirty-five being the preferred age overall. In the United States, the ideal age varied more, but the majority fell somewhere around 27-28. According to our interviews (which I do not in any way claim to be generally applicable), Americans see walking down the isle as a given, and they’re eager to do it earlier, while Spaniards increasingly see marriage only as an option, and one that may no longer be attractive, or necessary in order to lead a fulfilling life.

This leads me to ask:

a.)    Is there persistent pressure in the US to be married in order to be a “fully matured” member of society?

b.)    If no one is getting married in Spain, what will happen to La Familia?

• In Spain, not a single young man out of the ones we interviewed expressed the desire for a stay-at-home wife. These responses came from a wide variety of interviewees, many of whom had grown up with a mother at home. In fact, even the most politically conservative of our interview subjects, including a young entrepreneur as well as a right-wing politician, said that though they found the idea of a parental presence in the home appealing, they were not in favor of their future wife staying at home full-time as they feared it would lead to a feeling of being un-fulfilled on the part of the woman, which in turn would affect the family negatively. In the United States, the vast majority of the young men we interviewed expressed positive views on stay-at-home mothers, and many even responded that they hoped their future wife would stay at home. In a country where work is valued about all else (USA), it is surprising that many still believe that one person staying home (as domestic labor is still not commonly considered “work”) is the ideal. At the same time, in a country that traditionally values family so highly (Spain), it is surprising that the stay-at-home scenario is dwindling both as an ideal, and as an option.

This leads me to ask:

a.)    Are stay-at-home mothers (amas de casa) becoming rarer among younger Spanish generations for purely equal-opportunity reasons, or are the financial demands that increasingly require dual-income households the actual reason behind the shift in mentality?

b.)    If the traditional model of the male bread-winner and the female help-mate is still the form toward which the middle class strives in the United States, does that mean that this model is still more financially viable in the US? How, and why?

• The American favor towards stay-at-home parents may find its root in the fact that the overwhelming majority of the Americans we interviewed also expressed disdain for any kind of childcare centers. The overall view among the young Americans we interviewed was that the ideal child-care arrangement for young children is having a parent at home. Many (ok, honestly, most) cringed at the mention of childcare centers. Even the ones who responded that they believed in universal early public childcare as a principle in order to “level the playing field” for less privileged families who can’t afford to put their children in private care, answered that they would not consider using it for their own children. The Spaniards, on the other hand, responded that the ideal child-care arrangement in their minds included time split between a “guarderia” (childcare center) and the parents. Many noted that they believed the time spent in childcare centers is critical for the social development of a child. This difference in attitude may be explained by the fact that Spain, and Europe in general, offers heavily subsidized or free early public childcare, and that this provision is used by all segments of society. Those young Spaniards we interviewed from upper-middle class backgrounds had commonly spent some time in childcare centers, while Americans from the same socio-economic background rarely had.

This leads me to ask:

a.)    Are the European childcare centers of higher quality than those in the USA because they are used by more privileged people who are able to push up the standards? Or is it not fundamentally a question of quality, but purely one of stigma? What implications does a negative stigma on childcare centers have when it comes to work-life balance for the parents?

To conclude, Spaniards are the most social people I have ever met. And they need the least sleep. Their workday is long and they hardly ever seem to make it home before 8 (unless they are civil servants, “funcionarios”). Dinner is usually around 9 or 10 and weekday bedtime close to 1 or 2. When asked, Spaniards reply that the ideal amount of sleep per night in order to be healthy is 6 hours. I’ve always been told it’s 8 (I sure know I can’t function on less than that!). Ergo, no matter how much the Spaniards we interviewed insist that they work a ridiculous amount, and that self-fulfillment through work seems increasingly important, they are far from letting their beloved social time go. And I’m sure they never will. They seem to have approached the issue of finding time for everything in a day by simply cutting out sleep.

- Astri 

Show me the Money (and the movies).

In an article entitled “Netflix: Recruiting and Retaining the Best Talent,” BusinessWeek explains just how green the green can make .com pastures. Big market contender and Blockbuster rival Netflix is all about the money- doling it out, that is. The article explains that the Netflix strategy is: get only A-list talent by giving them salaries above the market average. Netflix founder Reed Hastings calls it the search for “talent density.” And he asserts that money is never a problem when recruiting new talent. If Hastings wants you, he’s likely to make you an offer you can’t refuse.

Netflix is also all about giving their workers the time they need, “as in: ‘Take as much vacation as you want.’ Last year, engineering manager Aroon Ramadoss took off five weeks to go to Europe with his girlfriend. He plans on taking another extended vacation next year in Brazil. ‘I like to travel in bigger chunks rather than take five days off and rush right back,’ says Ramadoss.” Hastings calls the company approach “freedom and responsibility.”

Fabulous pay and seemingly endless vacation time. Sounds pretty nice, huh? But don’t be fooled. Netflix is no paradise for the average fellow. Only real A-team players ever make it on this court. BusinessWeek notes that Netflix founder Reed Hastings “expects ultra-high performance. His 400 salaried employees are expected to do the jobs of three or four people.” That also means that managers are not afraid to let you go if you don’t live up to par. But again, the light stays green. Netflix gives very generous severance packages to those who aren’t living up to the high demands “because Hastings believes that otherwise managers feel too guilty to let someone go.”

Most companies can’t afford to take on the Netflix strategy when it comes to large salaries. But the core of the philosophy is simple, and affordable, enough: achieve and be rewarded accordingly. Freedom and responsibility. That freedom, as the Netflix example shows, is more than just dollars signs. It can be translated into flextime and generous vacation policies. That is something that more companies should offer their high achievers, as well as their middlemen. Such a policy makes for more efficient workers and more efficient companies. It goes back to the simple idea that hard work ought to be measured in what you produce rather than how long you spend in the office. After all, if you know meeting your deadlines means you have the freedom to see your kids or take that extra vacation, you’re more likely to feel motivated to work than if you know that you must stay in the office for x-amount of hours no matter how fast you complete the tasks at hand. A company with the motto "long days at the desk no matter what" is likely to get a lot of gchatters and online scrabble-players on their hands. When you give workers no time of their own, you better believe company time will be used for more than the company.  

- Astri 

photo by Howard Gees on flickr under creative commons license. 

Bonjour! 

The Lattice Group has left its beloved Madrid behind and reached a new exciting capital: Paris! Time to explore what the French think and do when it comes to working and living. Meanwhile, we've already made ourselves sick on cheese. We'll be back with news from la France as soon as we learn to digest.

À bientôt!

Astri et Vetta

 Be Careful What You Wish For 

A few days ago, a friend emailed me an article that just ran in El País, Spain’s largest daily newspaper. The headline reads: “Conciliar, sí, pero ojo con el niño.” Yep, it’s in Spanish; which is why it took me a while to muster up the brain energy to read it. Conciliación refers to reconciling work and personal life – the Spanish one-word equivalent for our “work-life balance.” The article argues that conciliación – reconciling one’s personal life with one’s working life - is certainly necessary, but that the children of working parents need to be a bigger priority.  One person quoted in the article suggests that “conciliación is good if it allows for more time spent with children; if not, we’re doing nothing.”

Agreed. Laws that allow both men and women to climb to the top of the corporate ladder are great, but simply mandating that a certain percentage of positions be reserved for women does little to address the needs of the entire family. If those women and men with rocket-careers both choose to have families as well, who is going to spend time with the kiddies?

Whereas in the 90s “latch-key kids” (kids who come home after-school to an empty house and take care of themselves ) were the talk of the town, in Spain attention has shifted to another phenomenon: “los padres de hijos horizontals.” Parents of horizontal children – clever, huh? The term refers to working parents who have the means to pay for childcare, leave the house before their children get up in the morning, and come back only after they’ve gone to bed at night. The imagery is simple and dead on.

Despite the fact that Spain offers public child care, paid parental leaves, the option to work part-time during the first years of a child’s life, and 2,500 euros in federal support per child, the article points out that this is still less than what many other European parents get. Of course, if Spaniards wanted to feel down-right awesome about their progress, they should have compared themselves to the U.S. In any case, there is room for only 17% of Spanish children under 3 years old in public childcare centers, while Belgium manages to enroll 81%, Denmark 56%, and France 43%. The U.S., in case you’re wondering, offers a stellar 0% of American children between the ages of 0 - 3 public childcare.

When we ask the young professionals and students we interview who will take care of their kids if they plan to continuing working, many respond “why they’ll be at school of course!” Since the Spanish workday is typically from 9 A.M to 7 or 8 P.M (with a 2-hour lunch break in the middle), we wondered how in the world this could be possible. Turns out, Spanish children spend more and more time away from home due to after-school activities, longer school days, and activities during vacations. The Spanish Society of Psychiatry estimated that about 40 percent of children are stressed due to the accelerated pace of life. The article suggests that all of the extracurricular activities that Spanish children do are not necessarily for their own benefit, but rather because their parents need a safe place to put their children for the duration of their long work day.

Affordable childcare and after-school activities would be a welcome addition to the sparse options available to help Americans reconcile their work and family lives. As this article points out, however, these options aren’t enough because children's well-being isn't the principal guideline - work is. Childcare, no matter how good, is probably not a sufficient replacement for parental care.

So what should be done? How do we reconcile work and family life? How do we restructure the system so that parents with very young children can spend more time raising their little bundles of joy and constant wailing? Back to the drawing board, I guess.

- Vetta 

 Access the full El País article here. 

photo by phitar on flickr under creative commons license.