When women are successful in obtaining the career they hoped for, they are questioned whether they are able to balance such a career and a family. The introduction and legalization of The Pill, “directly and immediately lowered the costs to women of engaging in long-term career investments by giving them almost complete certainty and safety regarding the pregnancy consequences of sexual activity” (Goldwin & Katz 464.) For the first time, women were given the opportunity to pursue a career without the tradeoff of being abstinent that existed before. With the delay of marriage however, women could be affected by having a smaller pool of men to choose from when they finally do decide to enter the marriage market. Contraception allows women to have the power to control and plan what their future will look like. Even though women are able to delay the time they have children, when this stage of their life does present itself, they still adhere to all responsibilities that come with having a family and a career. With Daycare and the support of their spouses, women are able to balance both their careers and families, yet research shows that these women aren’t necessarily happier than those who don’t “have it all” (Bertrand 245.) Those who achieve career and social goals are ones that are considered to have it all, however Bertrand’s research found it that the happiest women were those who had a family and no career. Women who stay at home have higher well-being scores than those who go to work every day, yet it’s not definitive who has a higher utility than the other, due to the fact that some women might feel empowered by the job they hold while others achieve this satisfaction through the amount of time they spend with their loved ones. Ultimately, I think women are getting better at balancing their careers and families with tools such as the pill, but whether they are successful or not in doing so is up to the individual to decide. Gender norms have played a significant role in the decision women must make in either pursuing a career or family. In Bertrand’s article on Gender identity and relative income within households, she states that gender norms such as men having to earn more than their wife has an effect on the success of the marriage and the productivity of the home. Bertrand found that if women make more money than their husbands, the likelihood of them getting divorced in the future increases. This could be due to men losing interest in their wives because they no longer see themselves as the head of the home, which is what has been planted in their minds throughout their entire lives, or even that women start to view their husbands differently because they aren’t succeeding similarly to them. What I found to be the most surprising was that women perform more household chores, even if they work and earn more than their husbands. This brings up the argument that women might be failing to successfully balance their careers and families because they have to work harder and more in order to keep up with the gender norms assigned by society. The idea of men not helping in the home is a case by case scenario because there could be men who support their wives and don’t allow gender norms to influence their decision in taking on the roles that women would otherwise do if they were the one staying at home. Policies that allow women to take off work after giving birth protect women from having to give up their careers, but doesn’t effectively protect the future of it. In my opinion, policies won’t be able to fully protect women from having to choose between a family and career until gender norms are debunked and eliminated in society. Although it seems like a long stretch and one that would take several generations to occur, with more women and men stepping out and sharing their success of practicing new gender norms in their homes, others will be influenced to do the same. This would allow woman to ultimately pursue a career and family without the tradeoffs that come with it. In Becker’s model of discrimination, employers don’t hire certain individual’s due to the fact that they might be disliked by coworkers, customers or the employer themselves because of their race or gender. Employers however, are willing to hire these individuals if they can pay them a lower wage than those who they considered qualified for the job. Women could be discriminated against due to the fact there is a possibility of them becoming pregnant in the future and have to take time off. This impacts women even more after they have their children because employers blindly assume that the mothers work would be effected and employing women would come at a higher cost. Skills gaps between men and women can be due to the fact that women choose and volunteer for positions that won’t feed them the resources or experience to keep up with their male peers. Babcock mentions that these acts could be slowing the progression of women in organizations and society (Babcock 744.) Gender norms where women find themselves behaving differently in professional environments when men are present is another input to the gender wage gap. In Acting Wife, women in a top MBA programs tend to act more ambitious when their male peers are not around to witness their responses. Women are again faced with the tradeoff of whether they’d like to enter the marriage market or labor market, reducing their possibilities of acquiring the same positions their male peers might pursue. In the gig economy, women’s preferences to work certain hours and times vary compared to those of men and is another contribution to the wage gap. The skills gap between men and women continues to be reduced everyday as more women pursue higher education in a variety of fields proving to be equally if not more qualified than men. In Culture, Gender, and Math Luigi Guiso and others state that “girls' underperformance in math relative to boys is eliminated in more gender-equal cultures…girls perform as well as boys in mathematics and much better than them in reading.” In Claudia Goldin’s article where women auditioning to be in orchestras increased their probabilities of being hired through blind auditions is another example of women excelling in situations that they otherwise wouldn’t because of discrimination and not because they lack potential. The assumption that men are better qualified for certain job is beginning to diminish with more women entering competitive work environments and excelling in their roles, proving that women are capable of performing the same talents as men. In the gig economy, employers hire individuals who have flexibility over their hours and discrimination towards employees is almost entirely eliminated. An article written by Cody Cook and other scholars, where earnings between Uber drivers in Chicago are analyzed, prove how a wage gap is still present in this economy and work setting. Even with flexibility in hours and transparent compensation, women are still making less than men because of three factors: a propensity to gain more experience, choice of different locations, and higher speed (Cook et al 3.) Even with policies like the ones in the gig economy that allow women to compete with men equally, a wage gap is still present. Leonardo Bursztyn, Thomas Fujiwara, and Amanda Pallais article share the results of a study done on women participating in one of the nation’s top MBA programs where single women are avoiding actions that might shed light to their ambition and reduce their chances in the marriage market. It was interesting to learn that married women, who don’t have the same concerns as those who are single, responded similarly to their male peers. Single women with higher education are finding themselves in a difficult situation where they must choose between a prosperous career or a husband due to the fact that men “avoid female partners with characteristics usually associated with professional ambition.” For this reason, single women tend to participate less in settings where men are present, ultimately effecting their labor market outcomes. Similar to Acting Wife, Niederle and Vesterlunds explanation of the gender gap in math test scores also proves this theme of women behaving differently depending on the environment. We can conclude that gender norms are voluntarily assumed by women who want to enter the marriage market, especially those who find it important to marry someone of high education like themselves; even if this means making decisions that could penalize the chances of a higher role in their careers. This means that although policies can be introduced to reduce the amount of discrimination towards women in the labor market, preferences towards gender norms would continue to be present. Lawrence Summers gave three explanations as to why there is a lack of women in top academic positions in Stem Fields at a NBER conference where topics of inclusion and diversification were supposed to be discussed but rather explanations that were not backed by solid evidence were shared. His first explanation for lack of women representation in STEM positions at top institutions is their reluctance to work eighty hour weeks if they have children and a family. The results from acting wife could be interpreted to either support or debunk his claims. While women might make social decisions that could stray them away from acquiring such roles, it doesn’t attest that all women are making these decisions or that women wouldn’t be willing to take on the 80 hours like men do. Women at elite institutions report to have similar ambitions as men, and whether they portray these ambitions in an environment where men are present or not is irrelevant, the fact is that women desire to achieve these roles and they don’t have the probability of doing so due to factors out of their control. Simply assuming that women aren’t capable is disheartening coming from someone who was once president of a university that many women aspire to attend and develop a prosperous career. His second statement of fewer girls having top scores in science and math due to genetics is immediately debunked by years of research done by Luigi Guiso and other scholars where they found that the gap in math scores between boys and girls is solely due to the gender culture they are raised in and not genetics. Summers would argue this as he referenced autism, a disease once studied to be a result of parenting, is now seen as a genetic issue. His argument of genetics is quite dangerous as it questions all of the research done by Goldin, Rouse, Bertrand and other scholars where they argue that women are capable of acquiring the same skills as men and have even performed better. Lastly, summers claims that discrimination is not the main factor limiting women’s advancements in STEM and that women who don’t get hired at a certain institution will get hired at another. This claim does not take into consideration other constraints women face when seeking positions that are for the most part dominated by men. These constraints include lack of experience when compared to men due to women volunteering or being asked to participate in tasks that don’t promote their capabilities as mentioned in Babcock’s article. A policy that could promote an increase in the number of women taking on top STEM jobs, would be one similar to the orchestra experiment where women auditioned blindly. Allowing women to apply to these rolls without prejudice and discrimination, would increase the likelihood of more women getting hired. It would allow women’s qualifications to be seen and recognized, and not be clouded by pretenses that come with the hiring process as seen in restaurant hiring and most male dominated fields.