Report from the Center for WorkLife Law: The Untold Story of Why Women Leave the Workforce

The prevailing view in the media is that women leave the workforce primarily due to the pull of family life. In a just published report entitled “Opt Out” or Pushed Out?: How the Press Covers Work/Family Conflict: The Untold Story of Why Women Leave the Workforce, Joan Williams and her colleagues at the Center for WorkLife Law challenge the conventional wisdom and argue that women are pushed out by inflexible workplace environments designed around the image of the ideal worker as someone who is available 24/7 (one study cited in the report found that work-related reasons were key considerations in the decision to quit for 86% of the mothers surveyed, who cited such "pushes" as the "amount, pace and inflexibility of work.").

The report does not focus on lawyers, but they are mentioned and used as examples.

For those interested in reading a thought-provoking, well-researched viewpoint, click here for the full report on the website of the Project for Attorney Retention (note: the report is 1.25 MB in PDF format - allow time for download).