Balancing Career and Family Commitments
Before heading off to high-pressure careers, both male and female MBAs explore how they can save bandwidth for their families
By Margaret Steen
Myra StroberFor Stanford’s ambitious MBA students, Myra H. Strober’s Work and Family course can be full of aha moments. They hear, for example, that women who wait to have children may have trouble conceiving and that child care can take a big chunk out of a manager’s income or eat up the whole income of some workers.
Yet the cost of not working can be greater. And even workers without children may face challenges balancing work and family, including care for adult relatives.
For those not currently in business school, it may be surprising that the course exists at all or that the proportion of men enrolled in it has grown to 40%.
“The men are fully engaged here,” said Strober, professor emerita of education with a courtesy appointment as a professor of economics at the Business School. Some are motivated by a desire to be a good father; others want to understand workplace barriers that affect their wives, friends, or employees.
