Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers

This is a book every man should read. Even for those of us who have lived through and heartily supported the equality revolution, the book is full of stunning facts, both statistical and personal, that are a wake up call to a job not yet done. A male culture still dominates practices in business, the professions and the academy and does not fully address the implications of biology for the role of women in society and their struggle for a level playing field The book is also a great read. Mary Ann Mason writes clearly, forcefully and personally. The stories of many women collected by Eve Mason Ekman are compelling and very well told. The book combines the best of social science and personal narrative, to make a convincing argument that our sisters, daughters and wives still have great challenges as women and mothers in the working world. While we are living in times when more women are achieving high status position, this book reminds us of the costs to these women and tells us of the many powerful and talented women who choose, because of circumstance, to not go there. I have no doubt that this would be a better world if there were more women who running it. This book calls for a change that will benefit us all.

This book has many strengths, and three stand out. One is that the book really shows the data relating to women's success and longevity in the workforce, as affected by children. (The data are very easy to understand as presented.) Second, the "hard data" are backed up by and given voice with insights drawn from interviews with many women who have tried, in one way or another and in various settings, to continue a career and have children. Third, the book addresses not just this topic in general, but how women with children fare in several types of professions; for instance, it is very interesting to learn that female doctors remain in their profession with a lower dropout rate. And the book is full of insight from which any given employer--or any group of interested women in a worksite--could work to make real change happen, so that women have the chance to choose. This isn't a cheesy "you can have it all" book, nor does it try to whip up or take sides in "mommy wars." It is not about blaming people or trying to prescribe which way is best to raise our children. Rather, it helps us see what we can do to broaden the opportunities and quality of life for mothers and their children.

This succinct, impeccably researched and engagingly written book is a wake-up call to young women considering meaningful careers. It presents practical guidelines and pitfalls for forging a life-long profession in academics, medicine, law or business and also having a marriage and children. I wish this book had existed when I was making those hard choices. I'm glad it's here for my daughter. Lynne Kaufman, author and educator

We may think American society encourages equality between the sexes, but it's still true that marriage and children are good for men's careers and troublesome for women's careers. Mason and Ekman amply demonstrate that in a book that should be required reading for every CEO, college president, and manager of professionals. There are some real WOW moments in the statistics they present and the stories they tell, and they use these well to define an agenda for the next generation of changes that can make the workplace family-friendly. Opportunities for meaningful work and opportunities for healthy family life don't have to collide. Read this brief book and find out what each of us can and should do next.

Don't let the unpretentious, down-to-earth tone or breezy writing style of authors Mason and Ekman fool you -- this is among the most serious books on the topic to appear yet. Professor Mary Ann Mason is nationally known for analyses that (unlike some 'mommy-track' pundits) arise from solid data. Her extensive social science research documents the life-course points at which too many highly educated women drop out of the pipeline that leads men (and some women who sacrifice family life) to the top echelons of academia, law, business, etc. The implications of this feminized brain drain are as profound for the welfare of our nation as they are for the welfare of women and children. Mason argues that meaningful measures of gender equity must include not only women's equal representation in corporate boardrooms and at university podiums but also women's (and men's) ability to sustain satisfactory family lives without being relegated to second-class status -- without the either/or proposition too many fast-track women face. Mason's research findings have sparked initiatives to reform the workplace from traditional high-pressured male models to more humane and family-friendly environments where women can be better supported so that our nation need not lose a vast pool of intellectual and creative talent. Mason's advocacy campaigns have already made tangible differences at campuses across the country, benefiting graduate students as well as faculty seeking to combine careers with family. If future generations of professors, scientists, inventors, attorneys, CEOs, and media moguls are not to replicate the old limited boys-club models, Mason's prescriptions for transforming the workplace -- especially the influential fast-track professions -- deserve careful consideration everywhere.