The Stanford Survey

Getting It Right
by Laraine T. Zappert, Ph.D.

Career or motherhood? Do you have to sacrifice one to be truly successful in the other? And if you're trying to do both, will you have to compromise your career path or your child's needs? Is "having it all" even realistic, or just plain fantasy?

Leading Stanford University psychologist Dr. Laraine Zappert draws upon her twenty years of clinical and research experience to answer these questions and create a road map of innovative solutions. Through her findings from a landmark study of more than three hundred female graduates of Stanford's Graduate School of Business, Dr. Zappert addresses such critical concerns as:

• choosing between career and family
• handling the job stress and the demands of parenting
• the best time to have children — and what effect they'll have on a career
• keeping relationships healthy
• feeling confident about the decision to tackle the challenges of home and work.

Chapter 1

A common assumption among psychologists is that we all research our own neuroses, and I clearly am no exception. Since the 1980s at Stanford, the primary focus of both my clinical and research work has been the stresses inherent in the lives of working women. No big surprise — I knew those stresses intimately. It was apparent to me early in my professional training that integrating a successful career with a successful family life was going to be a significant challenge — one at which I was seriously disadvantaged by the lack of relevant advice and counsel available to those of us contemplating this particular course in life.

A Window on My Future

My first experience with the difficulties inherent in venturing down my chosen professional/personal path came as a freshman in college. Having been felled by a bout of flu during finals, I was permitted to take a make-up on, ironically, my first psychology exam. My instructor for the course, a young assistant professor, and the rare woman on the psychology faculty at the time, invited me to her home to take the exam.

Showing up at her door, I was greeted by a woman in obvious distress; a woman whom I had previously seen only as the consummate professional in the classroom. In one arm she held a screaming baby; with the other, she blocked the exit of a tear-streaked toddler. She apologized for the chaotic scene, pushed aside a pile of unfolded laundry so that I could work on my exam, and went off to attend to her two children. Her husband (now ex-husband), also a faculty member, was nowhere in sight.

I do not remember anything about the exam, but I will never forget the image of this woman, who, despite extraordinary talent and ambition, was so valiantly and painfully struggling to cope with all the demands competing for her attention. It was one of those apocryphal moments in life, and one that was indelibly etched in my mind. Clearly, it influenced my thinking about having children for more than a decade.

It was not until several years later, during time spent in Latin America working on doctoral research, that I was able to observe a different way of integrating personal and professional priorities.

As an American woman who had experienced the pre-1970s, pre-women's movement biases in our own country that excluded women from most professional positions, I was pleasantly surprised, indeed fairly shocked, to find so many Latin American women holding professional degrees and working at highly respected posts in government and private industry. Not only were these professional women (and the authority they wielded) accepted in the workplace — a surprising circumstance given the infamous "machismo" ethic — but these women were also able to adroitly manage a fully involved, highly satisfying family life. How did they do that?

The answer was as simple as it was unfortunate. Their success in doing both was predicated on the existence of a servant class that freed women professionals from the usual household responsibilities. These women were able to spend all of their nonwork time with their children and their families and still maintain highly engaged professional careers.

Obviously there were problems with a servant class — not the least of which were the devastating consequences for the migrant women who often had to abandon the care of their own children to secure work — but the idea of a support system that allowed professional women to fully accomplish their personal and professional ideals was an intriguing notion. Clearly, only if women could secure the necessary support would they be in a position to do both things. So, short of inventing a servant class, how does one go about accomplishing this end?

Answering that question is the task of this book. Let us begin by taking a look at the women in our Stanford survey.

Who Are The Stanford Women?

In the late 1990s, I was invited to address a conference for alumnae of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. My bargain with the business school was that I would address their alumni if I could do for that group of female alums what had been done for other reunion groups — namely, survey them on a variety of issues of importance in their lives. It was an extraordinary stroke of luck to have access to an exceptional sample of women professionals going back over 60 years. I would only hope that the business school would be equally pleased with the outcome of our bargain.

To survey the women of the Stanford Business School, a questionnaire was designed by myself and two recent women MBA graduates. We sent the questionnaire to all women graduating before 1975 and a random sample of women from the graduating classes of 1976 through 1995. In all, over 300 women responded to our survey.

Developing the Questionnaire

Much like the women we set out to study, from its inception our questionnaire suffered from hyperambition. Our committee of three came up with an endless stream of interesting questions that we wanted to pursue. It took incredible discipline to keep the questionnaire under 10 pages, but the concern that too lengthy an instrument would discourage participation was a relatively compelling deterrent.

One of my worst fears in creating the questionnaire was that we would learn a whole lot about very few women, that the amount of information we were asking of our sample was simply too great. What actually occurred, however, could not have been further removed from that concern.

Although we had estimated that it would take between 1.5 and 2 hours to complete the questionnaire, many of those responding went well beyond that estimated time to tell us about their experiences. In many instances, the survey evoked far more information than the simple 5-point scales had requested. Letters and other documents often accompanied the data contained in the surveys returned to us. We were literally besieged with information.

In designing the layout of the questionnaire, we thought that we had left ample room for comments. More than a few women, however, admonished us for not providing enough space to elaborate on their experiences and thoughts. Often, the questionnaires were annotated with scores of helpful comments and insights, and quite regularly, they arrived with all available space covered in writing, including the margins.

On several occasions, the questionnaires were accompanied by drawings made by children who drew along with (and sometimes on top of) their mother's work. Several women apologized for stains on the survey, reflecting the fact that they had completed the questionnaire while balancing a sandwich at their desks or preparing a meal at home. Others apologized for water marks caused by children or grandchildren splashing in a nearby pool. Illegible handwriting was often explained by the fact that the questionnaires were filled out in cars, trains, and planes. Clearly, multitasking was the operant mode.

These were busy women, and many precious minutes were dedicated to providing insightful answers to the questions posed. For that, we were extremely grateful. It was equally clear that the issues raised in the questionnaire touched a nerve for these women, and the generosity in their thoughtful replies forms the basis for much of what follows.

Even in the way they filled out their questionnaire, these women were demonstrating their remarkable capacity to get things done. As one woman, a busy executive described her life:

Generally I manage pretty well with sixteen balls in the air at work and absolute chaos at home. Imagine how dangerous I'd be if I ever got a full night's sleep!

The Survey

The questionnaire we designed covered a broad range of topics. We asked the women about their experiences at business school, as well as about their personal and professional experiences since graduation:

• How had they handled the challenges they confronted in their careers?
• What kinds of choices had they needed to make?
• How had those choices affected other parts of their lives?

In a section on careers and families,

• We asked about the problems that arise when a professional woman decides to start a family.

• We solicited their insights on the impact of children on a professional career.

• We solicited their opinions on the right time to start a family.

• We asked about what things helped or hindered when children were introduced into the equation.

• We sought advice and strategies on how to manage the conflicts that exist for working parents.

In the final section of the questionnaire,

• We examined the values these women found sustaining in their attempts to create an integrated life.

• We asked about what was important in their lives.

• We solicited whatever advice they might have for professional women just beginning the journey.

• In our sample, we found that most of our respondents were very enthusiastic about filling out the questionnaire, and more than a few indicated that the questionnaire helped them to think about issues of importance to them in very different ways than they had previously done.

The Women We Studied

Far exceeding our wildest expectations, the sample of women responding to our survey was truly astonishing. Of the more than 300 women who returned completed questionnaires, our oldest respondent was 86 years old and our youngest was 26. Our earliest respondent graduated from the Stanford Business School in 1931 during Herbert Hoover's presidency, whereas our last group of respondents graduated in the postmodern world of 1995. All told, their educational experiences spanned over 60 years, and they accounted for fully three generations of professional women.

The women we studied did just about everything in terms of work, from CEOs and corporate executives to small-business owners and sales managers. Our women worked in engineering and high tech, sales and marketing, education, accounting, investment banking, consulting, law, medicine, and a variety of other fields. Some had worked on oil rigs; others had managed lumber plants, produced films, had run large and small family businesses or were among the earliest players in the then-emerging online fields. One of the women in our survey had more than 15,000 employees working for her, whereas another managed to work as a physician throughout her time at business school. Our women counted among their number business executives, engineers, physicians, attorneys, teachers, authors, entrepreneurs, and homemakers.

Most of the women in our sample worked full time, and nearly half of them worked more than 60 hours per week. For their efforts, they earned, on average, about $100,000 a year. Over two thirds of them were married, and nearly 40 percent of them had children.

Although the ages of the children ranged anywhere from under 1 year old to 56 years old, the majority of the women with children in our survey had children under the age of 2.

Pioneers, Settlers, and Successors

Women who graduated from the Stanford Business School at different points in its history have obviously had significantly different work and life experiences. To better appreciate these differences, we divided the women we studied into three groups: Those women who graduated before 1976 we called the Pioneers. The women who graduated between 1976 and 1985 we called the Settlers, and those women who graduated between 1986 and 1995 we called the Successors.

Copyright © 2001 by Laraine Zappert, Ph.D.

About the Author

Laraine T. Zappert, Ph.D., is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Zappert is the founder and director of the Women?s Group Program at Stanford?s Graduate Schools of Business, Law, Medicine, and Engineering, and serves as director of the university's Sexual Harassment Policy Office.