Women balancing careers and families is a struggle that can be traced back as early as the 19th century.
Claudia Goldin, a former Penn Economics professor, addressed this issue last night as part of the Women's Studies Department's 30th anniversary celebration, which will continue until Jan. 4.
Goldin, who now teaches at Harvard University, won the Kravis Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching in Economics in 1989 and the Guggenheim Fellowship Award in 1987 for her work at Penn.
It was during her time as a professor that she began to notice the way college-age females were talking about their future goals.
"The latest generation of college graduates... define the fast track as having a career and a family," she said, adding that the students lumped "career and family" into one word, which they spoke of "as though the timing was not an issue."
Goldin became curious about the evolution of this transition in beliefs about career and family. In her research, Goldin uncovered the difficulties women had experienced in the past, as they struggled to "have it all."
According to Goldin, women who graduated from college at the turn of the 20th century were forced to make a "clear choice between family and career, given the constraints of their day."
Though many women started putting their jobs before their families in the next few decades, by the 1950s, things seemed to have taken a step backwards.
"If women did manage to graduate from college in the '50s... on average they would marry within about two years from leaving college," she said, adding that this meant "many were going to college to get their 'MRS.'"
However, the next group of women that Goldin studied -- who graduated from college between 1966-1979 -- had reverted to putting career before family.
Goldin warned of the dangers this often presented, though, since many did not pay attention to their "biological clocks."
But by 1980-1990, it seemed that women graduates were finally striking a balance.
In all, Goldin said, there has been a "fairly substantial increase in the percent of college graduate women who are 'mummies on the fast track.'"
Goldin cited several factors, including birth control pills, a greater ability of women to hold certain professional jobs and a "phenomenal increase" in enrollment of women at colleges.
However, Goldin concluded that women in the workplace still have a long way to go, with men balancing a career and family twice as often as women do.
The increase in women working and caring for a family "isn't to say that the labor market is bending over backwards to help women," she said. But it does show "how each generation built on the successes and the frustrations of the previous ones."
Students had positive comments about Goldin's address.
"I thought it was very insightful," College freshman Rachel Berkowitz said. "It made me think a lot about my own mother."
Graduate student Emilia Turra, who had read Goldin's book entitled Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women, said she was most impressed by the speaker's presence.
"She was able to keep my attention for the whole time," she said.
According to Sociology Professor Janice Madden, Goldin was chosen for the lecture, in part, for exactly that reason.
"She was a star teacher here at Penn," Madden said, adding that Goldin has the remarkable ability to present "serious academic content in a way that entertains."
