career

Moving countries – part II

Posted on by karenkleinwort

The last few weeks, I have been partly irritated, annoyed, frustrated. What happened?

After we have been living here for nearly twelve months, after the first school year finished and we have had our first summer vacactions, I decided that now it was time for myself. I had gotten my kids into the school we always wanted (and which had first told us that they could not offer them a place as classes were full). I had assisted them in countless homework sessions, struggling with the Spanish language that they had heard and partly used since they were born with their father and their Mexican grand-parents, but that they had never been formally taught in. I had found us an apartment. I had waited – also it seems – countless times for some handyman to not show up on time or not show up at all to fix something in our flat – informality is widespread in Mexico, and in the capital there is always “trafico” that serves as a good excuse. I had found us a maid, a pediatrician, a dentist; struggled with the lack of service from banks, insurance firms, the gas company.

So, after all that, I though that I would like to find a job; find a company or an organization that could make use of my professional experience, that would give me opportunities to add value, to grow, and hopefully appreciate my services by paying me a decent salary. And that is when irritation, annoyance and frustration started. And when I got aware of my blatant ignorance of Mexican labor market conditions.

I knew that the minimum wage was very low – it actually is 66 pesos, or a little bit more than 5 US Dollars, a day. As most laborers work six days a week, but get paid for seven, that would make close to 2000 pesos a month. Having a masters degree, I was considering my earning potential far above minimum wage. But still, what I have been offered so far is considerably below my NGO salary back in Vienna. And that was less than what I had earned working in knowledge management in The Netherlands. And that, again, was not as good as what I had gotten as a business journalist in Germany. You see – my career, when you measure it by income, has been in a downward spiral for the last 13 years. I have been doing something wrong (but that would be the subject of at least one other post, I guess).

But back to my job hunt in Mexico. I also knew that Germans are very spoiled when it comes to vacation days. I had 30 days when I worked at Financial Times Deutschland. Times have changed a bit in Germany as well, particularly if you enter the labor market, but still, Germans enjoy a great amount of vacation a year. In one of my first interviews, I learned that according to Mexican labor law the employee actually does not have the right to ANY day of paid vacation during the first year. In year two, law grants her or him six days. After ten years, you have the right to ten paid days a year. There are several employers that offer more than the legal minimum. However, for a European even 15 days a year is meager, and it does not even cover a third of Mexican school vacation. So, if you try to combine family and career, start saving up for summer camps.

In addition, Mexicans work the most and the longest hours – at least within the club of industrialized countries (OECD). A Mexican worker puts in more than 2200 hours a year; a German not even 1400; an American close to 1800.

So, bad pay, little vacation, and long hours. On top of all that, trying to commute in a metropolitan area of 20 million people can be stressful and can take an hour or more, each way. That is not exactly the jackpot. With that in mind, when I feel irritated, annoyed and frustrated, I am trying to cut myself some slack. And then I remind myself of the theme of this blog that says “keep on trying” – and I write another application.

What adds to my irritation is that I would rather like to find something, but without the searching part. Yes, I admit, I confess. After having moved countries four times in 13 years, searching for a suitable position has felt taking as much time as actually working in the different jobs. But, as the Mexicans say: ni modo. What happens to me now is just another phase of adaptation to a my new place of residence. I should congratulate myself that I have managed part I so well. Keeping on trying.

The big challenge

Posted on by karenkleinwort

I grew up hardly thinking about feminism and gender equality. That debate took place before my time, it seemed.

During high school, girls could take the same courses as boys, and they got at least the same grades, often better. Then, as an apprentice and later at university, it was the same – loads of women attending the lectures on micro- and macroeconomics, a lot of them on top of their classes. They all got good jobs – it was the mid-1990s when we finished, the economy was doing fine all over Western Europe.

When I got my first well-paid position, the story continued – there were about as many women as men among the new recruits at Roland Berger, and also later at Financial Times Deutschland, there was pretty much a gender balance among editors and staff writers. Once you went up the hierarchy, women were scarcer, though.

So, all these years, I experienced that men and women have the same rights and that they can achieve the same if they want to.

This believe drastically changed when I got kids.

It might be a “German reality” much more than it is a Belgian, US-American or Argentine one. That is because until a few years ago (and still nowadays in a lot of cities in Western Germany), finding a day-care for your one-year-old is not easy. Finding one, that is open until 6 or 6:30 in the evening is close to impossible. And how about a creche for a six-month-old baby – forget about it. Germans are still doing quite well financially that the pressure for both parents to go back to work full time right after birth is less heavy than in Chicago or New York. And as Europeans usually run their own households, both husband and wife working AND doing the cleaning, washing, shopping and cooking is very often more than a lot of couples and new-born parents can deal with. In the developing world such as Latin America, professionals have the luxury of much more support at home – a “muchacha” who prepares your dinner, some guy who washes your car, a person with a power-drill and a bag of tools who fixes your broken sink for a few dollars, instead of you spending precious time on DIY during the weekend.

The special German character of this situation gets even more pronounced once children start school – as up until today, a lot of German primaries and even secondary schools finish at mid-day. And classes are usually designed so that students do a substantial part of the understanding and learning outside the classroom. In such a set-up, it comes in very handy for the student to have the support of a well-educated person in the afternoon – either in some after-school institution (those are, again, not always easy to find) or at home. In the latter case, another task for mom or dad.

When I consider all the men and women whom I studied and worked with in the past and who got children some time along the way, most of the men work full-time, while most of the women are employed part-time. The “moms” are occupied more than part-time, though – as in most cases they have assumed the main responsibilities of raising the kids and running the home.

So, on paper, men and women, fathers and mothers have the same rights and are considered equal. Reality shows, however, that even with the same education and similar capabilities, moms and dads very often take on different roles and subsequently have different careers and reach different earning potentials. One of the main challenges of nowadays families is for parents to find the roles that suit them and for couples to negotiate along mom’s and dad’s expectations, desires and necessities. After more than 30 years without them, I am finally leading my very own debates on feminism and gender equality.