Submitted by CARPE DIEM

Ms. Katty Kay (BBC anchor and reporter) and Ms. Claire Shipman (ABC News reporter), writing in today’s WSJ:

Fed up with 50- and 60-hour weeks and a career ladder we didn’t build and don’t want to climb, women are looking for jobs that demand fewer and freer hours. We want to work but we also want quantity time, as well as quality time, with our children. Most of us no longer buy the onwards-and-upwards drive to the corner office at the cost of a fragmented family life. More and more, women are choosing a tapestry of family and work in which we define our own success in reasonable terms — even if we sacrifice some “prestige.”

In 1992, 57% of women with degrees wanted more responsibility at work, but by 2002 that figure had plummeted to 36%, according to the Family and Work Institute. Four out of five women want more flexibility at work and call it a top priority; 60% of us want to work part-time. What we’re saying is we’ll trade responsibility, title — even paycheck — for more time and more control.

MP: Doesn’t that help explain the graph above (click to enlarge)?

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