, Columnist
The New Work-Life Balance: Don’t Have Kids
A growing number of young adults can’t see a way to manage both careers and the demands of parenting.
Work is winning.
Photographer: Belinda Howell/Moment RF/Getty Images
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In 1992, Wharton professor Stewart D. Friedman — having become a father a few years earlier — asked graduating MBA students if they, too, were planning to become parents. Yes, said 78% of the class. Twenty years later, he put the same question to the class of 2012 and was shocked to find that number had plunged to 42%.
The reason? The millennials were deeply invested in having successful, meaningful careers, and they just didn’t see how they could juggle those jobs and the demands of parenthood.