Don't even get me started on this...

Women make only 80 percent of the salaries their male peers do one year after college; after 10 years in the work force, the gap between their pay widens further, according to a study released Monday.

Basically, the article says that young women aren't promoted because companies assume they will have children and that they will then leave the workforce.

I have mixed feelings about the whole women/children/working thingy cause I know several friends who have stayed in the workforce after having kids and many of them definitely don't have the same focus or priority towards their job after having children. I think this is natural and is not necessarily a bad thing.

Then again, I have a really close friend from high school who is quite the muckety muck (Sr. VP at a global firm) who has a 6 year old son. And her husband is quite successful too. But of course, they live in NYC and have all sorts of dough and help. And, her field is one that tends to be largely populated with women, which probably doesn't hurt.

The part that bugs me is the company's assumption that women will make the choice to leave the workforce when/if they have children. This of course doesn't take into account women that don't or can't make the choice to stop working or women who have the financial means or a supportive partner to give them the opportunity to continue to focus on their career or women who can't or don't have children at all, who are penalized because the company assumes they will have kids and leave.

And of course, this is all subtle and not documented and may not even be conscious (although I might be bending too far in giving them the benefit of the doubt there...).

Not sure how we can resolve this one, but really would love to.