Why do gender gaps in pay and leadership persist even among highly educated professionals? How do family structures, workplace norms, and educational choices intersect to shape economic inequality? And what would it take to design systems that allow both men and women to thrive without penalty?

Myra Strober is Professor Emerita at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a labor economist whose work focuses on gender, work, and family. Over the course of her career, she has studied wage inequality, workplace structures, and how institutional norms influence professional trajectories. She also founded Stanford’s Program on Work, Family, and Gender, bringing together research and practice to better understand how social systems shape economic opportunity.

Her scholarship blends economics, policy, and lived experience, offering a grounded perspective on how structural inequities persist even within elite institutions.

In this episode, we explore the economic and cultural forces that shape career paths. Myra explains how labor markets are not neutral systems but are deeply embedded in social expectations about caregiving, ambition, and productivity. We discuss how workplace structures were historically designed around a male breadwinner model, and how those assumptions continue to influence salary progression, leadership roles, and work-life balance.

Our conversation moves beyond data into lived reality. Myra reflects on her own professional journey and the evolution of gender norms over decades in academia and policy. We examine how educational institutions can either reinforce inequality or serve as sites of change, particularly when they consciously address structural barriers rather than attributing disparities to individual choice.

This episode invites listeners to rethink the relationship between education and economic life. It asks whether merit alone determines outcomes, or whether hidden systems quietly guide opportunity. And it challenges us to imagine institutions that value caregiving, collaboration, and equity as central components of success rather than peripheral concerns.