Benefits and Compensation, HR Management & Compliance, Talent

83% of Women Over 25 are Postponing Starting a Family to Focus on Careers, Says Survey

First comes love, second comes marriage, then comes … delayed family plans? Eighty-three percent of women over the age of 25 who plan to have children are postponing starting a family to focus on their career, compared to 79% of men, found a recent CareerBuilder survey. Wanting to earn and save enough money to provide for their family was the top reason given by both women and men who plan to have children (50% and 53%, respectively), followed by the desire to become more established and get ahead in their career (28% and 33%, respectively).

Family

One in seven women who plan to have children (15%) said they are waiting until at least age 35 to start a family. Sixty-three percent are waiting until at least age 30. Men were twice as likely to postpone having children until at least age 35 at 30%. They were equally likely to wait until at least age 30 at 64%.

“There is a growing trend among today’s workforce—both men and women are waiting to have children until they have reached their professional and financial goals,” said Rosemary Haefner, Chief Human Resources Officer at CareerBuilder, in a press release. “Despite similar reasons for postponing family plans, men and women differ widely on how much they expect to earn and at what level of position over their careers.”

Salary and Title Expectations for Men and Women
When asked to estimate the salary they would ultimately reach in their careers, men were much more likely than women to report they expect to earn $100,000 or more. Forty-four percent of men said they expect to reach a six figure salary compared to 20% of women.

On average, the highest salary men said they expect to reach during their careers is around $137,000. Women anticipate reaching around $79,000 on average.

Men are also more likely than women to expect higher job levels during their career, more than doubling women’s expectation percentage in company owner and vice president levels. Twenty-two percent of women expect to remain or reach entry-level compared to 10% of men.

Job Level Expected to Reached During Career Men Women
Company Owner 9% 4%
Senior management (CEO, CFO, CTO, etc.) 6% 4%
Vice President 5% 2%
Director 10% 8%
Manager 29% 27%
Professional/technical role 31% 32%
Entry level/administrative/clerical 10% 22%

Genders Do Not Agree About Equal Pay in the Workplace

Today a third of women (34%) do not think they earn the same pay as the opposite sex in their organization who have similar experience and qualifications. Men are not as convinced about the wage gap; 82% say they earn the same pay.

Survey Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder among 2,391 hiring and Human Resource Managers ages 18 and over (employed full-time, not self-employed, including 2,391 in the private sector) and 3,411 employees ages 18 and over (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) between November 16 and December 6, 2016. Percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions. With a pure probability sample of 2,391 and 3,411, one could say with a 95% probability that the overall results have sampling errors of +/- 2.00 and +/- 1.68 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

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