High powered jobs for women ‘a mixed blessing’

A new breed of highly successful elite women pursuing high-powered, top-paid jobs has brought mixed blessings for the cause of advancing womens’ rights, according to a Kings College London academic.

In a controversial article for current affairs magazine Prospect, academic Alison Wolf argues that the rise of elite women may have resulted in the virtual removal of boundaries from the professions, but there are also numerous less positive repercussions.

Foremost among these is that elite women are being dissuaded from having children by the potential impact on their careers, Wolf argues.

She said that society has failed to recognise the impact of employment change on childbearing.

“We are familiar with the prospect of demographic decline, yet we ignore, sometimes wilfully, the extent to which educated women face disincentives to bear children,” she said.

“The repercussions for our futures are enormous, and we should at least recognise this fact.”