The Stubborn Caregiving Gaps

The authors delve into how caregiving, not gender, underlies gaps between men and women in the workplace. They review extensive research on gender gaps in pay, leadership, and advancement. This research underscores the idea that conceptualizing caregiving as an ambition can help achieve gender equality, whereas treating it as an obligation will not. Caregiving ambition is central to why women don’t get ahead. The authors also consider the role of men, and fathers in particular, in understanding these caring gaps. Despite the fact that men report that caregiving is central to their identities, they engage in 50% less caregiving than women on average. For a variety of reasons reviewed in the chapter, men often don’t fulfill their caregiving ambition. In sum, gender gaps in the workplace are really caring gaps. Only by addressing these caring gaps for both men and women can parity be attained at work.