Mothers with MBAs more likely to stay home with kids

If you're hoping to balance work and family, a medical profession appears to be better suited to your lifestyle. More than one-third of female physicians were able to work part time, whereas only one-quarter of women in business fields worked part time, says a recent study by the University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business.

The option to work reduced hours was one factor the study considered as an indicator of family-friendly working conditions. Researchers looked at Harvard College reunion surveys for almost 1,000 women from the 1988 to 1991 graduating classes. They found that, overall, women with medical degrees reported family-friendly conditions more often than women with business degrees. As a result, when women in these fields have children, 94 percent of female doctors stay in the labor force compared to just 72 percent of business women.