Gender issues

I presented the statistics below in the opening of my talk today at  Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government . There are mixed messages related to progress toward gender equality: On the one hand, women have overtaken men in education , are increasingly the primary breadwinners within households , and men are closing the gender gap in childcare ; on the other hand, progress on the gender wage gap has slowed, occupations remain segregated by sex , and men continue to dominate positions of leadership . The private sphere appears to be more progressive than the public sphere at this point. Household decisions about education and the sharing of breadwinning and childcare responsibilities are moving toward equality while employment norms for pay, segregation, and promotion push against it. As men and women increasingly interact as equals in the home, they may come to expect more equality at work; current work norms, structures, and leaders, however, are often stalwarts of th