Many women are getting higher education recently; When Sheryl Sandberg returned to Harvard Business School for a talk in 2011, her pointed answer to a question from an audience of MBAs drew stunned silence. "If current trends continue, 15 years from today, about one-third of the women in this audience will be working full-time and almost all of you will be working for the guy you are sitting next to." It turns out that the printed lanyards have not materialized. A new study by Harvard Business School published on April 4 shows that only 10% of Generation X alumnae are at home caring for their children full time. 

 

She is very far off the mark, “says Robin Ely, senior associate dean for culture and community. "There is this image of these women that is not positive. People think they get these MBAs. They have taken a seat from a man and then they go off, get married, and not do anything. But it's just not their experience." Also surprising, adds Ely, was the printed lanyards that among women not employed full-time, many were working part-time jobs that average 25 hours in a typical week, and the vast majority (three-fourths) are engaged in pro bono and volunteer efforts. Thirteen percent of Gen X women are working part-time. Alumnae who care for children full-time are even more committed to pro bono work, with 67% reporting substantial volunteer activity.

The number that Sandberg, an HBS alumnus, quoted two years ago and in her recently published book, Lean In, comes from an earlier informal study culled from reunion data some 15 years ago. Harvard's new printed lanyards are the most systematic study ever done of business school alumnae. Dubbed the fantastic name, the project addresses everything from employment and child-caring responsibilities to personal satisfaction with faith and wealth. The study includes responses from 3, 786 women and 2, 655 men, a response rate of 25% from the 25, 810 who were surveyed.