(writing personally here, not for any organization)
Some good questions raised here!
I know that EA organizations have thought about this, for example when Giving What We Can was working on the dashboard that would show projected lifetime earnings and donations. I think it’s really hard to provide a broad overview of differences that doesn’t sound insulting or over-generalizing.
So much of the wage gap by gender reflects time away from work after having children, and individuals have significant choice over that. For example, I took a lot more leave (from a non-EA job I disliked) with my first child than I did with my second two from my EA job. In the US it’s common to take more like 10 weeks of leave, so the post’s use of a year of maternity leave as the default is pretty different from my experience.
(But I recognize that a lot of choices about how much time to take depends on income, childcare options, the children’s needs, and how flexible the parents’ work is. I don’t want to frame it all as completely up to personal preference. For example, my partner and I found ourselves unexpectedly without childcare when our eight-month-old refused to eat at daycare.)
Some non-EA resources that I’ve found at least somewhat helpful:
I Know How She Does It by Laura Vanderkam—based on working mothers’ time logs, showing how they actually use their time. Both the book and her podcast are definitely aimed at high earners / high spenders, which I found frustrating at times. But they’re useful for taking your time seriously. I often find time management advice by non-parents irrelevant, but Vanderkam is a parent of five.
ParentData blog and books by Emily Oster—less about career, but an economist-y take on a bunch of parenting questions.
Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids—maybe will help you worry less about things you can’t change, but I find there’s still plenty to worry about.
Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In is in this genre, but honestly I don’t remember any takeaways.
Thanks for sharing, Julia_Wise. I can definitely imagine how hard it is to for provide a broad overview of differences that doesn’t sound insulting or over-generalizing, and its good to know that EA organizations have thought about this. It’s really helpful to think about the non-EA resources too—I’ll take a look!
(writing personally here, not for any organization)
Some good questions raised here!
I know that EA organizations have thought about this, for example when Giving What We Can was working on the dashboard that would show projected lifetime earnings and donations. I think it’s really hard to provide a broad overview of differences that doesn’t sound insulting or over-generalizing.
So much of the wage gap by gender reflects time away from work after having children, and individuals have significant choice over that. For example, I took a lot more leave (from a non-EA job I disliked) with my first child than I did with my second two from my EA job. In the US it’s common to take more like 10 weeks of leave, so the post’s use of a year of maternity leave as the default is pretty different from my experience.
(But I recognize that a lot of choices about how much time to take depends on income, childcare options, the children’s needs, and how flexible the parents’ work is. I don’t want to frame it all as completely up to personal preference. For example, my partner and I found ourselves unexpectedly without childcare when our eight-month-old refused to eat at daycare.)
On the informal side, there are groups for women and nonbinary people in EA and parents (and people considering parenting) in EA.
Some non-EA resources that I’ve found at least somewhat helpful:
I Know How She Does It by Laura Vanderkam—based on working mothers’ time logs, showing how they actually use their time. Both the book and her podcast are definitely aimed at high earners / high spenders, which I found frustrating at times. But they’re useful for taking your time seriously. I often find time management advice by non-parents irrelevant, but Vanderkam is a parent of five.
ParentData blog and books by Emily Oster—less about career, but an economist-y take on a bunch of parenting questions.
Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids—maybe will help you worry less about things you can’t change, but I find there’s still plenty to worry about.
Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In is in this genre, but honestly I don’t remember any takeaways.
And some pieces by EAs about parenting:
Parenting: things I wish I could tell my past self, Michelle Hutchinson
How to be productive before your baby turns one, Ruth Grace
My experience returning to work after having a baby, Rose Hadshar
Equal parenting advice for dads, Jeff Kaufman (plus lots of his other parenting posts)
Parenting and effective altruism, Bernadette Young
How much will pregnancy affect your health and work? me
What startup founders should think about before having kids me
How much do kids cost? The first 5 years me
More posts by EAs
Thanks for sharing, Julia_Wise. I can definitely imagine how hard it is to for provide a broad overview of differences that doesn’t sound insulting or over-generalizing, and its good to know that EA organizations have thought about this. It’s really helpful to think about the non-EA resources too—I’ll take a look!