How to Close a Gender Gap: Let Employees Control Their Schedules -<br />Get the Upshot in your Inbox<br />The main reason for the gender gaps at work — why women are paid less, why they’re less likely to reach the top levels of companies, and why they’re more likely to stop working after having children — is employers’ expectation<br />that people spend long hours at their desks, research has shown.<br />“The only reason they’re not getting there is they’re going through this phase in their<br />life where working 16 hours at a single desk is incompatible with their life.”<br />Seventy percent of working mothers say having a flexible work schedule is extremely important to them, according to a Pew survey.<br />Yet when people get flexible work arrangements, they’re generally isolated cases — for longtime employees whom companies trust and don’t want to lose.<br />People can apply to jobs that let them work away from the office all the time or some of the time,<br />and at hours other than 9-to-5, part time or with minimal travel.<br />Women who have less education or are paid hourly wages have significantly less flexibility than professional women to begin with.<br />Social scientists call it the flexibility stigma, and it’s the reason that even when companies offer such policies, they’re not widely used.<br />Most of the employers are small companies, and it is aimed at an elite group of women — highly educated and on a leadership track.
