Having It All by Corinne Low, PhD

What if you had a playbook for navigating life as a woman—the career decisions, the relationship questions, and the tradeoffs no one talks about? Whether you’re building your career or building your family (or both), this book gives you the data and the tools to get a better deal at work and at home.

Women today face impossible choices about careers, relationships, money, and time. And most of us are navigating them without a framework, a script, or even the full picture of what we’re up against. This book gives you all three.

In
Having It All, Wharton economist Dr. Corinne Low explains how the system actually works—and gives you the tools to make it work for you. First, she breaks down the data on what’s really happening to women at work and at home. Then she offers a clear framework, practical scripts, and strategies you can use at any stage of life.

Inside, you’ll learn:
• Word-for-word scripts for asking for a raise, renegotiating with your partner, and setting boundaries
• Why women negotiate differently than men—and how to use it to your advantage
• A framework for career decisions: when to push and when to pivot to get more than you give from your job
• How to evaluate whether your relationship is a good deal, or ask better questions on your third date to find one that is
• How to structure your time, money, and energy around what you value

Dr. Low blends rigorous research with personal experience, including her own story of burning out as a working mother and rebuilding her life on her own terms.

In the tradition of
Fair Play and Cribsheet, consider it the guide to life as a woman that no one gave you—backed by data, loaded with scripts, and actually fun to read.

Why I Picked It Up

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A bit of a tangent to start—I tend to be one of the quietest figures in a room (shocker, if you only know me from the Internet!) which has the occasional result of making people forget I'm present.

I spent a few years on the North Shore of O'ahu in a heavily-military friend group and, while I have complicated feelings on the institution and how it intensifies certain traits I perceive to be negative, I was very aware the whole time that I was their pocket feminist. Not at all saying that's exclusive to that group, but the prevalence of certain flavors of masculinity were much more visible to me then vs. when I've ran in other social circles.

Sometimes, the men forgot I was listening to them still at a group event and got to the types of things they wouldn't have said around their girlfriends, etc., like beliefs that women shouldn't be given any leadership roles. That kind of belief occasionally manifested in their speech in small ways—like having strict ideas of male vs. female chores—and in a few larger ways that made me suspicious of their views over time, but this occasion was pretty cut-and-dried sexist in my view.

I fully support the choice to take on traditional gender roles (which this book addresses too) but believe it should be a conscious choice rather than the default assumption from a man.

I personally have no interest in a relationship that's not consciously and actively a partnership, and I think relatively far ahead in that if I know from the get-go that I don't have compatible ideals, I am uninterested—and in fact repulsed if there's misogyny involved. I do not find it sexy for a man to view a woman as inferior.

Thinking through that experience and many others, I've been aware of this book since before it came out, and was excited to read it—but then I put it off for a year and a half or so because I kept getting angry over the idea of what it might say. There's so much I would love to do, and so much structurally that can make that harder to achieve. Based on what opportunities I'd like from my own life: what should I prioritize when, and even in my home life? It's one thing to know that information exists, but it's another to be confronted with the data while scraping together what my next stage of life might look like.

About the Book

The book takes a tour through many of the issues that impact how women shape their lives at work, home, and in their leisure time. Some are dependent on personal choices, while others are imposed on them as a result of the assumption of certain default choices. (Ex: the data shows that it doesn't matter if a woman has children or not; she receives similar penalties in loss of promotion opportunities before age 40; after menopause, the trajectories even out again—but the damage has already compounded within her career.)

Dr. Corinne Low worked as a consultant and had children with her husband, who worked in the same field, before becoming an economist at Wharton. Her experience parenting (and divorcing) and trying to achieve tenure while supporting another career—needless to say, it made her deeply interested in gender and its ripple effects in each of these domains.

“This book asks the question: What would it look like if we stopped assuming the problems in women's lives are caused by women's choices and started looking instead at the structural, economic, and biological factors that are forcing and constraining those choices in the first place?”

Chapters cover topics and phenomena like questions to ask yourself when falling for a partner, when to decide to outsource something to buy time (and how that dovetails with what your values may be), when to move for family, etc. etc. They're not outlined in a "by decision" way—so it doesn't at all feel pedantic—but the book flows through some milestones and life stages that start to accumulate exit options, and chats through how tipping points at each can determine what's important to you.

part of a text rec

In my impressions, there's a good mix of personal agency and structural context embedded in this book. It gives us plenty to do and consider, while still acknowledging the sea we swim in. I deeply appreciated how functional and interesting it was at any point. It never felt scary the way some of these can be, but was instead practical with enough warmth and understanding. The tone reminded me a lot of Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, which is a high compliment for me.

Have I sent highlights to friends? Absolutely. It'll be a reference title going forward.

Voice & Structure

Dr. Corinne Low is an economist at Wharton, and I loved the way she approached her writing. It was solid and tangible and personal and advice-forward without feeling too self help-y in the "Girl, wash your face!" variety.

She'll bring up a topic, her personal frustrations or wins, the data and studies supporting it, and then go the further step of breaking down how to use that information based on what you want from your own life—your personal utility cost. As in, a job is only so useful to you as you can exchange it for money which then allows you to purchase things that benefit your utility.

The voice does use phrasing and vocabulary like "reclaiming your power" and "unique" a lot, which may feel woo-woo to you, but it didn't feel like too much at any point—it's just a particular lexicon associated with certain subgenres.

Going into this book, you'd assume it's mostly about parenting, and that's a heavy influence for sure. Cribsheet, a favorite nonfiction book of my older sister, is a comparative title for that reason. But Corinne Low doesn't push you towards one mode of life or another; instead, she writes about how to figure out your values in the first place and then determine whether your environment is set up in a way that will create opportunities for choice.

It'll Spark Personal Conversations, for Sure

As a 28-year-old woman, I've noticed in the last year or two many of my peers going to their "second cities" now in this decade. Many of my friends are at the point at which they're either aware the late twenties are a chance to try something new—which of course, is always true later, but becomes less elastic—or to double down on where they are.

Some of my friends are parents; some are getting married. Some are entering grad school, and/or have reached impressive career heights, etc. The people making big commitments are having to have structural conversations with their employers, families, partners, etc.: Do they want kids? If so, when? Should they invest in a graduate degree? Should they only do so if they don't have to take out loans, if they want to be pregnant shortly afterwards? etc. etc.

It's a very relevant book, even or especially for those who don't want those factors in their lives—because, as the book points out, any woman of fertility age is impacted by those data biases in their hiring, promotions, treatment, etc. Choices now will lead to other choices later, and they don't exist in a silo.

I was on the phone with a friend two months ago talking jobs and we were chatting about how we both frequently remind ourselves of the data showing that women are way less likely to go for roles they feel unqualified for, whereas men overwhelmingly have the reverse effect—making men more likely to have those breakthroughs. I try to remind myself of it whenever I sit down to scan job or opportunity requirements and assume I wouldn't make it to the next round. Data like that is helpful in that it'll boost your own personal checkpoint to try to close the gap—which is why I also love reading about unconscious influences to balance my brain—but Corinne Low is very clear that it's not up to individual women to do so and that "leaning in" in the workforce isn't the answer.

I loved her emphasis that every woman has different values to maximize, and how the answer isn't automatically to swing more corporate or more toward the household. She filters each insight through the lens of this personal utility, and it's a clear and useful prism throughout the book that's definitely shifted my brain for the better. It is all about the tradeoffs.

Some (Not) Fun Facts from the Book

(Keep in mind these are statistical averages.)

• It doesn't matter if a woman is the primary breadwinner. In fact, they do almost twice the cooking and cleaning when they are. Men's housework time hasn't budged in over forty years.

“A man who earns only 20 percent of the household income does about the same amount of housework as a man who earns 80 percent.”

• Divorced mothers sleep more than married ones.
• Women are more likely to specialize in tasks when their marriages are secure.
• Parenting is more taxing in this generation than the one above.

“Between 1993 and 2003, the amount of time college-educated mothers spent with children nearly doubled from around twelve hours to over twenty-two hours per week.”

• People are generally happier when they make decisions oriented towards change, versus maintaining status quo bias.

“While men and women have a slight wage gap when they graduate, by the end of the chart, thirteen years out, the women's ninetieth percentile earnings is identical to the men's mean. I cannot emphasize enough how truly wild this is.”

“Something subtler and more insidious happened in the household during that time at home—the wife became the childcare expert. Now, not only does her husband have the slightly more promising career, but she is just better at soothing the crying baby, at knowing what needs to be packed for day care, which clothes the little angel has grown out of, what constitutes a developmental milestone, and when to call the pediatrician.”

• Firms statistically avoid giving women as many promotions during childrearing years even when those same women do not have or want children.
• In blind studies on resume, a female GPA of 4.0 was functionally equal to a male GPA of 3.75. Female resumes missing GPA were evaluated as if the number were at the bottom of the range, whereas male resumes missing GPA were assumed to be at the top. Sequential resume review vs. side-by-side evaluation always penalized women because bias tried to boost the man.
• Partners are more likely to move for a man's job vs. a woman's job, with his income increasing as a result of a location change and her income usually decreasing.
• etc. etc.

Overall Thoughts

Having It All was brilliant and practical and I loved reading it. I would love to bring it to a book club with friends my age, and I'd love to chat through some of its realizations (and suggestions.)

I think this is a book that some will be tempted to call a "woman's book" which exemplifies the issue; I do think a lot of men should read it and face the numbers, and the fact that most won't indicates why the book matters so much.

For fans of—

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman; Cribsheet by Dr. Emily Oster; Fair Play by Eve Rodsky; The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt; Labor of Love by Moira Weigel; Let's Get Physical by Danielle Friedman; etc.