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German businessman Rubin Ritter is spending millions in wages to take care of his children.
Or why is it good to spend time on the wife’s career
My wife and I agreed that her career ambitions should take priority for years to come. This is recognition from the CEO of one of the largest online clothing and footwear stores in Europe, Zalando. Rubin Ritter, 38, surprisingly announced that she would step down in May to dedicate herself to her family. The businessman is expecting a second child next year and, as his statement makes clear, his wife also wants to continue her career as a judge, a common situation today. However, wives generally drop out of their careers or try to combine it with parenting, especially when it comes to a fast-growing business like Zalando’s.
The company was launched in 2008 in Germany. It is run by three directors, with Ritter playing a key role. “When we started shipping the first shoes to customers from our office basement, we didn’t know how far that would take us. Rubin’s influence on Zalando’s success cannot be overstated,” said other director Robert Ganz. Today, the company has 14,000 employees in 17 countries, it has 36 million clients and last year it had revenues of 6.5 billion euros. Ritter’s salary in 2018 and 2019 was a total of 28 million euros, which places him among the highest paid CEOs in Germany.
Therefore, his decision to abandon all this earlier than planned, given that he has a contract until 2023, caused many surprises and comments. Furthermore, Germany is among the countries where gender inequality is severe. Women in it receive about 20% less than men for the same position, so most stay at home or work part-time to raise children and husbands to provide money for the family.
“My decision is the result of many months of careful consideration. After more than 11 incredible years in which Zalando has been my top priority, I feel it is time to give my life a new direction. I want to spend more time with my family. growing, and as for my own future, I am eager to pursue new interests outside of Zalando, ”Ritter said in a statement.
His decision to abandon his successful career in favor of his wife came just a month after another famous man followed suit. Douglas Emhov, the husband of the newly elected vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, dropped his lawsuit and earned him about $ 1 million a year to dedicate himself to the role of his partner. An activity that until now has been carried out only by women in American politics and has more than key complementary functions.
“We’ve been waiting for that gender swap for decades,” said Kim Nulder, a political science professor at the University of California, who has been studying equality between men and women for years. According to her, there is a lot of symbolism in Emhov’s decision to withdraw from his fast-paced career to help his wife. He himself says he wants more women in elected positions and more partners, whoever they are, to support them and create opportunities and an environment for them to be successful. And while many people view his future role in the White House as an early retirement, others believe it is the behavior of a modern man who does not suffer from prejudice.
However, Barbara Perry, who leads the presidential inquiry at the University of Virginia, cautions that Emhov’s decision is only the first step towards real equality between husbands in politics and a huge social challenge, as we are not used to men giving up their careers for wives or family.
According to the American consultancy on gender equality Avivah Wittenberg-Koch, who advises several companies on the subject, no matter how much work has been done in recent years on the subject when it comes to really very successful women, the possibilities continue being two: super supportive partner or none. He says he faces many progressive men who are willing to make their careers easier for him. They cheer for them, applaud their success, but suddenly everything goes wrong when it starts to interfere with their own careers. Unsurprisingly, a survey of Harvard Business School alumni shows that more than half of the stronger sex expect their professional development to take precedence over that of their wives, while almost all women expect equality and only a few believe that their careers may be leading family relationships. “It’s easier to choose the path of least resistance – the historical norm for a career-focused man and a family-focused woman. If the husband is a few years older, this is even easier as he already has career advancement. and earn more. This leads to a cycle difficult to break. Men have more opportunities and women have more and more difficulties to succeed. There is a frustration that seems relevant to the increase in so-called late divorces. 60% of them They are started by women over 50 who pursue a career after their children have left home, “explains Avivah Wittenberg-Koch. According to her, this has changed in recent years as more and more people realize that when both partners have good careers and income, this is a great advantage in turbulent and unpredictable economic times like today.
However, the understanding that men should be leaders still dominates in our country. A Eurobarometer survey placed our country in first place in Europe in terms of gender stereotypes. 81% of our compatriots continue to believe that the most important task of the stronger sex is to earn money, while in Sweden the percentage is 11 and in Denmark 17. The same difference is about understanding that a woman should be a housewife . On the other hand, at least people in our country say that men can show weakness and cry and it is necessary to take paternity leave.
Salary doesn’t matter, social status leads
The social status and respect that a career evokes, not pay, come first for many modern men when prioritizing family priorities. This was proven by a study conducted by scientists at McMaster University in Canada.
During interviews, we found that no man whose wife is a doctor or a lawyer looks down on his career, no matter how much he works or earns, says Associate Professor Erin Reed. She emphasizes that money is important to couples’ careers, but not in the way we think. The amount of pay is not always decisive for the race you will lead.
It turned out, for example, that around 40% of the respondents positioned themselves according to the traditional identity of the person who supports the family. “These men gave their wives’ work low social status, which made them accept it as economically significant, even when it wasn’t,” Reed explains. According to her, we often focus on how family life shapes women’s career paths, but ignore how it affects their halves. “Our study showed that men’s careers are largely determined by how they interpret the social status and financial value of their wives’ work. If they don’t need to be more flexible because of their wife’s work commitments and not they consider them important, they are more committed to achieving their own success, ”said the head of the research team.
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