Note to MBAs: Up or Out
Thursday, May 28th, 2009There’s a cost to taking time off of work.
First the obvious. You don’t get paid when you don’t work. (That’s the general rule, anyway.)
Next, there’s the impact on your social security benefits or pension.
Often, there’s the loss of an incremental salary bump, compounded over future years.
And for too many, there’s an irrevocable impact on a career—an up-or-out philosophy that suggests anyone who isn’t consistently moving forward isn’t destined for the top.
Now two well respected Harvard researchers have quantified the impact of a career hiatus. Surveying Harvard College alumni, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz calculated the financial penalty for someone who takes a 18 months off of work and found…it depends on what you do.
Earnings loss, per degree:
- Medical doctors – 16%
- BA’s – 25%
- Ph.D’s – 29%
- Lawyers – 29%
- MBAs – 41%
Clearly something is going on with those MBA’s. As the New York Times suggests, the size of financial loss “suggests that time off puts them on a completely different career track.”
Not long ago, well-educated Harvard women were criticized for taking time away from work—“wasting” brains and education that were needed in the marketplace. Yet the study suggests that these women (or men, for that matter) aren’t valued in the workplace. How could they be, when they are so permanently and drastically punished merely for stepping back a bit?
Can we surmise that to be an MBA (characterized as accountants and financial types in the NYT) is simply incompatible with family?