Women on Wall Street: The Challenge of Working and Caregiving, and Getting Paid Fairly

Despite the growing presence of women working on Wall Street and in leadership positions at some of America’s largest companies, working on Wall Street as a female presents a number of added challenges and disadvantages compared to that which a male may experience. More specifically, studies have found that women have continually been the family caregivers, and family caregiving increases steadily over a woman’s life course. Women fulfilling the role of the family caregiver can run into time constraints and problems when trying to juggle that role with a position in the paid labor force. Another issue is that women earn less than men earn in similar labor force positions. These issues are prevalent on Wall Street, and the problems associated with the issues are actually much more significant due to the nature of the work and a career on The Street.

Any woman in the paid labor force wanting to start a family faces the challenge of needing to be the family caregiver. Normally, the challenge would be to juggle working 8 to 5 or 9 to 6 – which would fulfill the requirements of a 40-hour-per-week job – with the caregiving requirements of the family – spending time with her spouse, fulfilling the needs of children, caregiving to her parents, etc. However, a woman with the time requirements of working on Wall Street, especially as an investment banking analyst, will find it much more difficult to successfully fulfill the requirements of both her job and role as a caregiver. If a woman’s job requires her to be in the office from 9am until 10pm or later, as often is the case with investment banking or other jobs on Wall Street, it is near impossible to be a caregiver to her family and relatives.

Women required to work 12+ hour workdays in common Wall Street business divisions like Sales & Trading or Investment Banking often postpone starting a family in the interest of their careers. Being pregnant for nine months by itself is very challenging to do with only 6 hours of sleep per night, and even after having a baby, no time is left to spend with her husband and raise their children. As more time is spent at a company, promotions are earned and hours and job demands tend to fall, which is women on Wall Street tend to start families, typically around the age of 30. Even then, divorces are common and outside hires are made to fulfill caregiving roles.

Another issue prevalent with women working on Wall Street is unequal pay to that of men in similar positions, as well as a bias to promote men over promoting women. This is not as true in the lower, entry-level positions for business divisions like investment banking where hierarchy and time at each position is set in stone. However, at higher managerial and executive positions, a gender bias to promote men over women and pay a man more than a woman for the same job. As a small example of pay differences, Muhtar Kent, male CEO of Coca Cola, made nearly $20 million in compensation in 2008, where Indra Nooyi, female CEO of PepsiCo, made about $15 million. These are very similar companies and the two CEOs face very similar challenges. Obviously, company and individual performance, among other factors, come into play in deciding total compensation, but Kent earning 33% more than Nooyi seems too large to overlook. As for the decision to promote men over women, it is quite evident that men are more likely to be promoted, and on the flipside, women are more likely to be let go during downsizing. At Citigroup, 90% of managing director positions in investment banking were held by men, and a group of five women are filing a lawsuit alleging Citi discriminated against women by preferring to let go of women before men. Although nothing has been proven on Wall Street specifically, studies and anecdotal evidence show that women most certainly do not have the cards stacked in their favor.

Wasserstein: Evidence for the Health and Aging Costs of Working on Wall Street

Late last year Bruce Wasserstein, chairman and CEO of Lazard died at the age of 61. He was hospitalized for what was described as an irregular heartbeat, but passed away later that same week. Lazard is a major investment bank, reporting about $1.5 billion in revenue for 2009. Wasserstein was an investment banker that, while being able to boast having fostered one of the most famous mergers & acquisitions (M&A) deals in the past few decades, carries the detrimental health effects of stress and sleep deprivation, as discussed in two previous posts. Passing away at the age of 61 – a relatively young age by today’s standards – can be attributed much in part to the negative health and aging effects of a career in investment banking.

With long work hours and pressure to meet deadlines, the stress of his job most certainly shortened his life. Friends and those close with Wasserstein said he had exhibited no signs of cognitive decline, and Lazard’s board of directors were “shocked and greatly saddened” by his sudden death. As discussed previously, abnormally high levels of stress can lead to high blood pressure and heart problems, for which Wasserstein was suddenly admitted to the hospital. Although his exact cause of death is unknown, the surprising nature of his passing and the fact that he had shown no signs of cognitive decline point to stress and his career as the major detrimental factors in his heart condition and passing away.

It should also be noted that Wasserstein had advised on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of M&A deals, and he was a multi-billionaire himself, so being able to afford quality healthcare and caregiving services was of no problem to him. Passing away after two days in the hospital, his condition must have been serious to the extent that medical treatment (no matter the cost) could not save him. It tends to be the case that older employees on Wall Street are better off financially and do not run into problems accessing private and public assistance and healthcare programs, as is commonly the case for underrepresented or low-income groups in other businesses or locations in the United States.