Results of a survey conducted by the Society of Petroleum Engineers in May 2011 on factors impacting dual career couples. 5570 people participated in the survey.

1. Talent Council Survey Results -
Impact of Increase of
Dual Career Couples
Eve S. Sprunt, Chevron
2006 President Society of Petroleum
Engineers

2. Impact of
Increase of
Dual Career
Couples

3. Why are surveys important?
 Management is data driven
 Surveys can reveal quantifiable bias
 Surveys can show demographic trends
 Ask difficult questions
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4. SPE Surveys
 Key drivers for management are:
• Attraction of new employees
• Retention of existing employees
 SPE has conducted two surveys on Dual
Career Couple Issues
• May 2011 of entire SPE membership
with 5570 responses
• December 2011 of SPE members under
age 45 with 1392 responses
 Early 2013 launch retention issues survey
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5. First Survey Conclusions
 Dual career couples comprise about half the workforce between 25 and
45.
 Proportion of dual career couples will increase as the big crew change
progresses.
 The female percentage of the petroleum engineering workforce is
increasing and will continue to increase.
 Female technical professionals are delaying, but not forgoing
motherhood. Women may work for a decade or longer before becoming
mothers.
 Relocation is easier if both partners in the couple work for the same
company, but some couples intentionally work with different
employers, because of unwanted comparisons with their partner.
 Report on first survey is available through SPE’s One Petro as SPE-
151971-MS and was published in October 2011 issue of SPE’s Journal
of Petroleum Technology (JPT).
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6. Partners
Women Men
Consider themselves part of
DCC
90% 70%
Contribute 40 – 60%
household income
53% 35%
Partner in petroleum
industry
65% 43%
Partner with same employer 28% 21%
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Female petroleum engineers are more likely than male petroleum
engineers to be part of a dual career couple, contribute about half of
the family income and have a partner in the petroleum industry and a
partner with the same employer.

7. Whose career is more important?
 When both spouses earn about the same amount, 86% of
women and 80% of men think both careers are equally
important.
 Older managers with a stay-at-home spouse do not
understand the concept of two careers being equally
important.
 Many employers want couple to pick whose career takes
precedence.
• “Always, one career has to lead and the other follow.”
• “It is a must for one of them to accept being the second
one or relegated employee.”
 We have a generation gap!
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8. The question hurts women’s careers
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• Women are more likely to be asked
• Women with children are about twice as likely to
be asked as the equivalent men
• When couple work for the same employer much
more likely to be asked
But even when they make about the same amount
of money as their spouse
• 4 times as many men as women think their career
is more important at the present time (16% vs
4%)
• Almost 7 times as man men as women think their
career is more important in the long run (34% vs
5%)

9. Motivation to Relocate
 Top ranked motivator for men and women either dual career or single
career was to gain valuable experience
 Top motivators for dual career men, single men, and single women
were the same.
 For dual career women, “if the move was to a location where my
partner can find work” was the 2nd ranked motivator. It was ranked
6th by men.
 Only a very small percentage of women and men said that they would
not be willing to relocate under any circumstances.
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10. Key Relocation Issue:
A Job For the Spouse
 54% of women’s and 39% of men’s comment on relocation were on
the partner’s employment.
 Men more often than women comment on financial replacement of the
partner’s income.
 Both genders frequently wrote:
– “Hire my spouse”
– “Help find a job for my partner”
 But, only 13% of women and 17% of men said their company did
a good job of providing employment assistance for an
accompanying partner.
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11. Other Barriers to Relocation
Which Of The Following Would Make You
Refuse to Relocate
% Women with
Children
% Men with
Children
If there was not a school for my children 86 77
If I could not obtain affordable, reliable
childcare
62 38
If I could not obtain adequate medical care
for one of my family members
63 64
If I had to move to a developing or
politically unstable country
55 55
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69% of the women and 76% of the men think that relocation is important to
achieve what they want in their career.
When it comes to life or death issues, there was no gender difference.

12. Career Aspirations
Career Goal
What Level Do You Wish
To Attain By The End Of
Your Career?
What Level Do You
Think You Will Achieve
By The End Of Your
Career?
% Women % Men % Women % Men
Top management 30 43 21 35
Middle management 25 19 29 28
Lower level management 6 3 12 5
Individual contributor/subject
matter expert
23 15 24 15
Self employed 8 6 6 5
Founder of your own company 7 14 4 12
Other 2 1 4 1
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Women have lower expectations than men.

13. Children
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 57% women and 51% of men answering the survey have children
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
under20 20 to 24 25 to 29 30 to 34 35 to 39 over 40
PercentofGender
Age Range
Parent's Age When First Child Born
Women
Men

14. Length of Parental Leave
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0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
%TakingThatLengthLeave
Duration of First Maternity Leave
First Maternity Leave
US Citizens
Norway Citizens
Rest of the World
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
%TakingthatLengthLeave
Duration of First Paternity Leave
First Paternity Leave
US Citizens
Norway Citizens
Rest of the World

15. Parents Want Flexible Work Arrangements
 When asked what their employer did well to support work-life
balance, dual career couples, and working parents, more people
(56%) cited flexible working hours and telecommuting than anything
else.
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Things parents mentioned in
freeform comments that their
employer could do to make it
easier for them to manage
% Mother’s
Comments
% Father’s
Comments
Flexible hours 34 28
Telecommuting 19 21
Part-time work 9 2
9/80 schedules 3 2

16. Pressure Not to Use Flexible Work-Life
Balance Friendly Policies
 13% of women and men encountered resistance from their manager within the last year
when trying to use their company’s work-life balance friendly policies.
 20% of women and 15% of men encountered negative feedback from colleagues.
 Women wrote:
– “Allow me to use the programs that they already offer”
– “Less negativity for working those flexible hours from team members”
– “More senior support for existing policies”
 Men wrote:
– “Promote a culture of achievements and success rather than time spent on task.”
– “Provide flexible hours and telecommuting options as opposed to being chained to a desk when
it doesn’t add much value to the company.”
– “Take a more liberal interpretation of flexible work schedule policies companywide. Currently it
is VERY manager specific.”
– “Honor the policies”
– “I may not have ever received pushback directly, but there is a lot of indirect pushback due to
the level of work that is required to be completed so you feel that you must sacrifice your family
time a lot of the time to get your work completed.”
– “The company has very good policies for dual career couples, but the implementation is many
times not in the spirit of the policies with supervisors concerned about their own deliverables.”
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17. Parents Want Childcare
 Freeform comments:
– 25% of the women and 21% of the men addressed childcare in their
comments
– On-site childcare (21% women, 10% men)
– General childcare assistance (4% women, 11% men)
 On-site daycare should be viewed as a family benefit, not a women’s
benefit.
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18. Conclusions of Second Survey
(Full report in SPE paper #160928)
 Managers in “traditional” single career marriages often do not
understand the issues faced by dual career couples
 Employers should adjust policies to reflect increase in dual
career couples
– Coordination of dual careers when both work for same
employer
– Offer flexible time/telecommuting
– Consider on-site daycare
 Asking “Whose career takes precedence?” is damaging --
especially to women’s careers, because women very rarely put
their career first.
 Women place a higher priority on protecting their partner’s
career than most men do.
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