On September 19, Columbia Business School hosted the “Universities, Careers and Women” research symposium. Organized by the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics, the symposium presented research and observations on the participation rates of women in higher education and their subsequent career advancement in such professions as business, law, medicine, science and academia.The symposium sought to explore the challenges facing college-graduate women who have both children and a career. The symposium also addressed the gender gap in earnings among individuals holding professional degrees, including MBAs.“Six years after receiving their MBA, 90 percent of alumnae are employed full-time; eight years out, that number drops to less than 65 percent,” said Ann Bartel, the Merrill Lynch Professor of Workforce Transformation and director of the Human Resource Management Program. “One of the challenges we face at Columbia Business School is helping our alumnae through the transitions they face during the course of their careers.”Claudia Goldin, the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University, delivered the event’s keynote address, “Education and Careers: Insights from the Harvard and Beyond Project.”In her remarks, Goldin analyzed the workplace-participation rates of female and male graduates of Harvard University and Radcliffe College during the period 1969–1992, citing data from her study “Transitions: Career and Family Life Cycles of the Educational Elite,” conducted with Lawrence F. Katz, the Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics at Harvard University. The study is the first to focus on individuals who have graduated from top-tier institutions.Less than one-third of all women surveyed by Goldin and Katz were employed full-time and had children. However, for women without children, that number increased to around 80 percent. Goldin attributed the large gap in these figures to the challenges women face in balancing a career and a family.Goldin and Katz found that women are entering some fields — such as optometry, pharmacy and veterinary medicine — in higher numbers. Goldin attributed this trend to the flexibility and transparency of these career paths, which, she said, makes them appear to women as more conducive to having both a career and a family. By contrast, of all women with professional degrees, those with MBAs were the least likely to continue working full-time after having children.In a separate presentation, Katz further explored the reasons that female MBAs with children have such low full-time participation rates, citing the high cost of taking an extended period of time off (a nearly 50 percent drop in earnings after an 18-month break) as particularly discouraging. “Where the economic cost appears to be higher,” Katz said, “women are much more likely to opt out — or opt in to part-time work.”Additionally, Katz found that the gender gap in earnings is much more pronounced among individuals with degrees from top-tier universities than it is among average college graduates. The typical male Harvard graduate earns over 100 percent more than the typical female graduate, whereas the average male college graduate makes roughly 40 percent more than the average female college graduate.Bartel said that Columbia Business School has responded to the issues addressed at the symposium by forming a partnership with Merrill Lynch to study workplace issues and develop best-practice solutions for increasing retention, productivity and diversity.Merrill Lynch has also given the School a grant to fund an Executive Education program, Greater Returns, which will launch in October and support women interested in reentering the financial-services workforce. “It is going to facilitate the ‘on-ramping’ process for these highly talented women,” Bartel said.