Study reports that women lose interest in making it to the top of a company after just two years, saying they are turned off by having to sacrifice so much for work.

By: Ryan Carrillo

The gender wage gap is a hot topic in today’s society. One side claims this gap exists due to structural sexism against women in education and business. The other side claims the gap is a myth, created by comparing men in high wage earning careers and women in low wage earning careers.

There is however a third option, the wage gap is real because women are less ambitious in the workplace.

According to a new study women lose interest in making it to the top of a company after just two years. The women reported being ‘turned off’ by having to sacrifice it all for work.

According to the Harvard Business Review

Bain & Company recently launched a study that asked more than 1,000 men and women in a mix of U.S. companies two questions: “Do you aspire to top management within a large company?” and “Do you have the confidence you can reach top management?” Women with two years or less of work experience slightly led men in ambition. But for women who had more than two years on the job, aspiration and confidence plummeted 60% and nearly 50%, respectively. These declines came independent of marriage and motherhood status, and compared with much smaller changes for men, who experienced only a 10% dip in confidence.

When more senior members of management were asked the same questions, the percentages of both genders went up but women never regained the same level of aspiration as newer employees. Women’s aspiration in the workplace remained 60% lower than men, whose percentages shot up.

The researchers said that women did not want to go for the top jobs in the company because they preferred a better work-life balance.

One women in the study was quoted as saying “Watching middle-aged white male after middle-age white male tell their war stories of sacrificing everything to close the sale was demoralizing, I just kept sinking lower in my chair and thinking that I would never be able to make it to the senior ranks if this was what it took.”

Another women surveyed said being on call 24/7 was “not appealing at all” while another reported not wanting to trade her personal life.

What also put women off was that much of the praise at work consisted of men being “hailed for pulling all-nighters or for networking their way through the golf course to land the big account.”

The study noted that “If corporate recognition and rewards focus on those behaviours, women feel less able, let alone motivated to try, to make it to the top.”

The study puts the focus on what front-line managers can do to help women’s career aspirations, but why?

Why should a company try to change its culture of hard work because some employees, mostly female, don’t want to work as hard?

If women prefer a better work-life balance that’s perfectly okay, but stop trying to make this about sexism and discrimination because it’s not. It’s about one gender naturally inclined to spend more time working than another. Millions of years of evolution turned the male into the provider, it’s not surprising that they are willing to give up more of their personal life for work.

Women and men with similar education, the same job, and the same work ethic, make nearly identical wages. The wage gap only becomes real when women choose it.

It appears that comedian Gavin McInnes was right about some of what he said on Fox News. (Watch it, it’s hilarious)