Reframing the Quest to “Have it All” – The Case for Worklife Equity

How did we get here? Who’s silly idea was it to “have it all?” in the first place?

My mother’s generation didn’t “have it all” – or even half. 

Married women in my mother’s and grandmother’s generation were locked in the domestic ivory tower as queens of their homefronts, but powerless in society at large. They were discouraged from holding jobs, gaining advanced degrees, deprived of bodily autonomy and virtually never granted leadership authority. Many laws treated them as the property they once were. By denying them independent income and authority, women were starved of economic power. Often even if they had money, they were unable to open bank or credit card accounts without a male signatory, and thus were unable to exercise sole legal responsibility for assets and investments that could produce wealth.  

This systemic disempowerment “protected” middle class women from unsafe work conditions suffered by the poor and “enabled” them to focus on the joys of family life without granting them social or economic credit for the hard work this entailed. They partnered with the men in their lives to feather and clean the nest, bolster family and agricultural businesses, and most importantly, provide the social infrastructure of childcare and volunteer labor to maintain the community and social infrastructure families rely on to survive. 

Unsurprisingly, many women found the tradeoff unfulfilling and unfair. Their aggrievement gave rise to the first wave of feminism that earned us the vote and some basic legal protections.

As they moved into the workforce more fully thanks to birth control and greater education rates, women were blamed for wanting to “have it all,” which meant both the joys of the homelife as well as economic participation. 

Women in the second wave of feminism reframed this slur and proudly claimed they “wanted it all.” A fervent belief that “it all” could be had fueled these pioneering women in overcoming the social stigmas and hard work this entailed.

With their declaration, the glove had been thrown down. Society (including the women themselves) said, “Ok, fine. You want it all? Prove you can do it all!”

And the game was on. 

Photo by Ekaterina Bolovtsova 

The Unpaid Economy: Families Giving It Away

Excited to have agency in a more empowered life, my mother’s and my generations took on the challenge to have it all with gusto. Proud of our ability to make a difference in the work world without sacrificing the joy we found in building a nurturing environment for our families, we took on the challenge to “have it all” with joy. 

In the process, the economy reaped the benefits of all our added talent in the labor pool. Women’s participation in the U.S. workforce contributes over a quarter of its overall value and analysts all agree that the full potential power of our contributions remains untapped. 

Of course, as women spent a smaller percentage of their time in the home, providing the historically unpaid labor for childcare, a greater burden landed on the education infrastructure and childcare industries. Initially, through the 70’s and into the aughts, public investments in children grew to offset the reduced amount of unpaid labor women once provided in caring for children. 

These investments were a public good and an earned tradeoff for the value women were bringing to the national GDP. Women’s increased employment rates fueled a general economic boon for business owners who reaped the economic benefit of this new, low wage, labor force. It also gave rise to the addition and growth of a new commercial industry–childcare.  

From an overall economic perspective, these shifts reflected bigger numbers in the stock market. But starting in the last decade, public investments have diminished and childcare costs have gone up. And despite 82% of working parents say that company-provided childcare benefits are meaningful employment incentives, only 6% of U.S. companies actually offer them.

This means that to the average woman and her family, much of the economic power families gain by both parents’ workforce participation are being siphoned off into spending more on education, childcare and related expenses. 

Many families increasingly face the choice to give away a large percentage of one parent’s time–or one parent’s income– in unpaid labor caring for their children. Elder care is also a factor, adding to the fact that as social support for families goes down more broadly, individual families must pick up the costs in both money and time.

Suddenly, the economic benefits for all parents when you “have it all,” starts to look like a penalty.

Personal Reality: Inequities at Home and in the Office

One bright light in this recent history has been that many men have discovered the potential joy in the search to “have it all.” Men’s contributions at home and in the family have increased over previous generations and more men are choosing to become the primary stay-at-home parent. 

Unfortunately, while men now contribute more than they ever have before, it’s not enough to achieve gender equality in paying the price of unpaid labor needed to maintain homes and families. Women in the United States spend 37% more time on housekeeping and caregiving tasks than their partners do. The gap in hours expended was highest among younger, childless couples, clocking in at a 54% discrepancy. (Interestingly, same-sex couples tend to divide their unpaid work tasks more evenly.) 

This expectation that women will volunteer more time to caring for the household is consistent across racial and economic demographics, speaking to a broadly held view – by women and men – that this differential is appropriate to their gender roles.

The strength of this cultural stereotype requiring women to volunteer more unpaid labor  is underscored by its appearance in the workplace as well. Societal expectations of what constitutes “women’s work” at the office shape the types of tasks women are asked to do, most often without recognition or compensation. These tasks, coined “invisible labor” and “non-promotable work” include both administrative and volunteer activities such as planning social outings, organizing meetings and volunteering for committees, but also extend to unseen (yet important) roles of providing social and emotional support during difficult times. And compounding the costs for working women, in addition to the persistence of the pay gap, is the fact that while men experience tangible and intangible workforce benefits for becoming fathers, women are penalized for becoming mothers. 

And the pandemic made all this worse.

The bottom line is that the excitement women once felt for the opportunity to “have it all” – playing meaningful roles in family and workplace life – has been turned back on them. While men and public support have stepped in to take up part of the unpaid, largely invisible, roles women used to contribute to the economy, it’s not enough. The status quo requires women to contribute more significantly in both the paid and unpaid economies.

Before we jump to believing that the solution is more equality at home and in the office – which is definitely part of the solution – I really have to question whether “equality” in the quest to “have it all” is the solution.

To “Have It All” Individual Women Need Worklife Equity

Here’s the thing. The persistence of the belief that women should be more involved in the unpaid childcare economy has genuine foundations. And a focus on equality in both the paid and unpaid economies ignores the realities about how children are born and the support they need.

Women’s bodies are still necessary to the birthing and care of young children. Even the most equality-minded couple, with a full-time stay-at-home partner and lots of money to throw at other support structures will struggle to get around the fact that someone’s body needs to go through the process of being pregnant, giving birth, recovering from the birth and supporting the infant. And that person’s body is simply not able to be equally present in the home, office or boardroom, without sacrificing something somewhere for some period of time. This cold rendition of the biological reality doesn’t even speak to the emotional reality that having a child–even if you don’t give birth to it–offers both parents.  

The pursuit of equality – exacerbated by the perpetual invisibility of the unpaid economy and social expectations that women contribute more – is leading us to a place where the quest to “have it all” – for women and men alike – is burning us all out. 

And both parents deserve to experience the joys of “having all they can” in both the paid and unpaid economies. The increasing likelihood that this isn’t possible for families with children, along with the general unsustainability of motherhood for so many women, may be contributing to declining birth rates more broadly. After all, if there are financial, physical and emotional disincentives to childbearing, wouldn’t a rational couple opt out more often?

On a social level, solutions to this conundrum lie in these areas:

• Public support for childcare and families to shift more of the unpaid economy into the paid economy
• Organizational improvements in fair hiring, compensation and recognition for women
• Organizational improvements in flexible work conditions, paid family leave and other personal benefits that enable employees to contribute needed time to their families (fewer than 6% of companies currently offer childcare benefits working parents!)

But on a personal level, women and their families need to shift their search to “have it all” from a quantitative equality mindset to one of equity. An equity mindset goes beyond counting things (like opportunities, salary, hours at work or chores at home) to ensure they’re the same. 

A worklife equity mindset factors in the importance of unpaid labor, including emotional labor and the physical labor of childbearing, some of which will never be recognized in the paid economy. In a personal and family system, both the tangible and intangible work necessary to make things work has to be identified, valued and negotiated by the partners (and sometimes their bosses, coworkers, neighbors, family members and even older children). These negotiations must factor in the differing abilities everyone has to contribute–even if they aren’t “equal.”  

There’s no formula to apply. This is truly a personal process that will look different for everyone. But something close to equity can’t be achieved without two fundamental dynamics being introduced, which don’t often enough exist:

• Making the invisible visible
• Asking for what feels equitable to you

Since women are the ones bearing the majority of the invisible work right now, the burden of initiating these challenging conversations falls to us. No, it’s not fair, but none of this is fair. And for someone already exhausted by the unfairness of it, it can seem overwhelming.

But here’s my advice, as a coach, mom, wife and leader: create an intention for what balance of workload–visible and invisible–will give you some sense that you “have it all.”

Then ask for it.

Be ready to negotiate and set boundaries as a part of these negotiations. You may not get to “have it all”, but you will probably move much much closer to it.