????如今，越來越多的女性正在獲得商學碩士學位，且年齡越來越小。但是，即便取得這類學位，女性能否得到更多報酬，目前并不明確。畢竟，即便擁有相同的商學學位和工作經驗，男性與女性之間，依然存在工資差距。

????美國管理專業研究生入學考試委員會（GMAC）最新公布的數據顯示，去年，參加管理專業研究生入學考試（GMAT）的女性人數約為10.6萬人，創歷史最高紀錄。并且在2009年6月至2010年期間，大部分考生的年齡均在30歲以下。GMAT是工商管理學碩士（MBA）課程及其他商學研究生課程的標準入學考試，由GMAC主辦。

????另據GMAC 在2011年公布的報告顯示，除MBA外，攻讀金融與會計等其他商學碩士學位的女性人數也有所增加。

????許多年輕女性選擇全日制學習，比如29歲的杰西卡? 迪琳。大學畢業后，她在房利美（Fannie Mae）與第一資本銀行（Capital One Bank）工作了七年。明年，她即將從喬治城大學麥克多諾商學院（Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business）畢業。

????在談到攻讀MBA的決定時，她表示：“你不得不考慮投資回報。因為商學院的學費高昂，所以你希望盡早在職場上獲得回報。”

????今年六月，阿萊麗?迪恩將從西北大學凱洛格管理學院（Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management）畢業。她之所以選擇MBA，一方面是希望拓展自己的技能，同時也希望擁有更多的就業選擇機會。她在國防工業巨頭洛克希德馬丁公司（Lockheed Martin）工作了五年多，一直從事分析師工作，但她希望有機會挑戰其他職業。

????“我要利用這個機會，改變自己的職業發展方向，”迪恩說。她今年30歲，計劃畢業后從事市場營銷與品牌顧問的工作。

????在過去幾年內，大批女性進入醫學院和法學院就讀，現在她們又轉而選擇商學院。部分原因是由于商學院注意到女性學生短缺，加大了對女生的招生力度。據美國聯邦數據顯示，目前，超過1/3的MBA學位獲得者為女性，在過去十年里，這一比例大幅增加。

高昂的成本，并不理想的回報

????頂級商學院的學費可高達10萬美元，甚至更高。對高昂的學費和欠債的擔憂，是影響女性選擇攻讀MBA學位的主要因素。而GMAC的調查結果顯示，男性最大的擔憂，則是學位能帶來什么樣的實際收益，或者是就業前景。金融或會計等其他商務類學位的學費較為便宜，約2/3的此類學位被授予女性。

????盡管商學院的女性人數不斷增加，但她們畢業后的就業前景并不樂觀。GMAC統計結果顯示，去年的MBA畢業生中，女性獲得的工作機會僅為男性的一半，而她們提交的工作申請卻比男性多出20%。

????獲得MBA學位后的回報并沒有想象中的美好。GMAC調查發現，2010年，與取得學位之前相比，女性MBA畢業生的平均收入增加了51%，而男性的收入則增加了54%。換句話說，女性獲得MBA學位后的第一份工作，平均薪酬為7.4萬美元，而男性則為7.75萬美元。

????Catalyst是一家專門從事商界女性職業發展研究的機構。它去年公布的報告顯示，在獲得MBA學位后的第一份工作中，女性收入比男性低4,600美元。

????而南希?M?卡特與克里斯汀?席爾瓦所做的研究結果顯示，這種同工不同酬的現象從第一份工作開始就已經存在了，而在將職位等級、行業、生育和職業前景等因素考慮在內后，這種差距在不斷擴大。

????婦女政策研究所（Institute of Women's Policy Research）近期公布的有關同酬日（4月12日）的數據顯示，即便在首席執行官職位上，女性每周的工資收入也僅為男性的72%。該研究所根據美國勞工統計局（Bureau of Labor Statistics）提供的數據，同時對平均周薪進行分析發現，不管是何種教育背景，111個職業中的107個職業存在同工不同酬現象。

性別不同，目標也不同？

????GMAC對4萬名有意報考商學院的學生進行了調查。該委員會管理教育部主任格雷戈?舍恩菲爾德負責對調查進行監督。他表示，通常情況下，在決定就讀商學院時，女性希望掌握的技能與男性有所不同。

????他說：“學生在確定需要優先掌握的技能時，性別起著關鍵作用。”

????GMAC對有意申請入學的學生進行調查后發現，男性希望能夠更加靈活地應對技術和操作方面的挑戰，而女性則更希望學習管理技能。

????以迪恩為例，她之所以選擇凱洛格管理學院，是因為它更注重團隊合作，所以“每個班級將被分成不同小組，而我必須考慮如何與各小組開展合作。”

????51%的女性MBA申請者在接受GMAC調查時表示，持有專業學歷非常關鍵。但也有58%的女性表示，她們攻讀MBA學位，是為了獲得成就感和個人滿足感。有50%的女性攻讀商學碩士的主要原因，是要保持自己的競爭力。

????迪琳說：“自信對我來說，是非常重要的。”她之所以決定攻讀MBA，是因為在第一資本召開的一次收益電話會議中，她對于財務細節了解不多。“所以，我想在我的名字后面也能加上MBA這3個字母。”

????喬治城商學院教授凱瑟琳?汀斯利認為，盡早就讀商學院，可以幫助提高女性在職場中的地位。“這將增加商界女性的數量，因為她們可以請產假，而且她們重新回到職場的可能性也更大，因為工作在她們的生活中所占的分量更重。”

????像杰西卡?迪琳一樣，對于許多女性來說，在她們做出攻讀MBA的決定時，組建家庭的計劃也是她們考慮的一部分。

????迪琳將在今年夏天結婚，她說：“我知道自己已經擁有許多方面的工作經驗。我希望有一天我能有自己的家庭，我當時以為那是永遠不可能的。我曾經甚至想放棄攻讀MBA。”

????她認為，取得MBA可以讓她未來的職業發展更加靈活。

????“如果我想打破傳統的就業選擇，”她說道，“比如，如果我想自己創業，我就可以向一幫專家——我的老同學、教授和校友等等——尋求幫助。”

????翻譯：劉進龍

????More women than ever are earning graduate business degrees, and at younger ages than ever before. But it's unclear whether these women are gaining much from the degree, with persistent wage gaps between men and women who have the same business credentials and work experience.

????Last year, almost 106,000 women -- the highest number ever -- took the GMAT, the standard admissions test for entry to MBA programs and other business graduate programs, according to the latest figures from the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns the test. And the majority of test-takers between June 2009 and 2010 were 30 years old or younger.

????In addition to MBAs, more women are pursuing graduate business degrees in disciplines like finance and accounting, GMAC found in its 2011 report.

????Many of the younger female students are pursuing degrees full-time, such as Jessica Dillon, 29, who worked for seven years after college, at Fannie Mae and Capital One Bank (COF). She will graduate from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business next year.

????"You have to think about your return on investment," she says of her decision to earn an MBA. "Business school is expensive and you want to see that return at an earlier point in your career.

????Arielle Deane, who is graduating in June from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, says opting for an MBA was a way to expand her skills and also to avoid pigeonholing her career. She had worked for more than five years as an analyst at defense industry giant Lockheed Martin, and wanted to explore other career possibilities.

????"This is an opportunity to change the trajectory of my career," says Deane, 30, who is planning to start a job at a marketing and branding consultancy after graduation.

????Women have largely flocked to medical and law schools in greater numbers over the past few years, but they are now turning to business school as well in part because business schools are mindful of the shortage of women students and are recruiting them more aggressively than they have before. Women now make up more than one-third of all MBA recipients, according to federal data -- up substantially in the past decade.

High costs and less than stellar payoff

????Concerns about the steep cost of a degree -- which can run $100,000 or more for a top business school -- and going into debt have been top factors in women's reluctance to enroll in an MBA program. In contrast, the main concern for men is the outcome, or job prospects, following a degree, according to GMAC. Other business degrees such as finance or accounting are a more affordable option, and nearly two-thirds of these degrees are awarded to women.

????Despite their growing numbers, all is not rosy for female business graduates entering the working world. Last year, women MBA graduates received half the job offers -- one versus two, on average -- of their male counterparts, despite sending out 20% more applications, according to GMAC.

????And the payoff from the degree is not always stellar. While 2010 female MBA graduates told GMAC's researchers that they earned, on average, 51% more than their pre-degree salary, men experienced a 54% increase. That translates into a median salary for women of $74,000 for their first post-business degree job versus men who earned $77,500, according to the council's findings.

????A report last year by Catalyst, an organization that studies female advancement in business, found that a woman in her first post-MBA job made $4,600 less than a man in the same type of job.

????More significantly, Catalyst found that unequal pay starts with the first job, and widens over time, even after accounting for job level, industry, child bearing and career aspirations, according to the results of the study by authors Nancy M. Carter and Christine Silva.

????Even among chief executive officers, women make just over 72% of what male counterparts earn in weekly salary, according to data recently released by The Institute for Women's Policy Research to coincide with Equal Pay Day (April 12). The wage differences exist across 107 of 111 occupations, regardless of education, according to the institute, which based its conclusions on an analysis of median weekly wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Different genders, different goals?

????Women often seek to acquire different skills than men when they decide to go to grad school for business, says Gregg Schoenfeld, GMAC's director of management education, who oversaw the council's survey of 40,000 prospective business school students.

????"Gender plays a key role in determining people's priorities and the sets of skills they want to gain most from their education," he says.

????GMAC's prospective students report found that men wanted to become more adept at handling technical and operational challenges while women were more likely to say they wanted to develop their management skills.

????Deane, for example, says she choose the Kellogg program because it emphasized teamwork, so "there's a different team for every class and I have to think about how I can collaborate with each group."

????Having the professional credential was critical to 51% of women MBA candidates surveyed by GMAC. But even more women -- 58% -- said they also were seeking the achievement and personal satisfaction that came from such a degree. And 50% of women listed remaining marketable and competitive as the prime reason for seeking a graduate business degree.

????"Confidence was a big piece of it for me," says Dillon, who set her sights on a graduate business degree during a Capital One earnings call where she did not understand all the financial details. "And I wanted to have those three initials behind my name."

????Attending business school earlier will help women to bolster their place in the workforce, says Catherine Tinsley, a professor at Georgetown's business school. "It will increase the number of women who stay in the business world because they will be able to take off time for child bearing, and they are more likely to return because work is a stronger part of their identity."

????For women like Jessica Dillon, plans to raise a family played a part in her decision to start working on an MBA when she did.

????"I knew I already had a diversity of work experience," says Dillon, who is engaged to be married this summer. "And I wanted a family one day, and I knew that it isn't possible forever. I wanted to get my MBA out of the way."

????The graduate business degree, she says, will give her future career some flexibility.

????"If I want to step out of the traditional workforce," she says, "I have an arsenal of experts -- my fellow students, professors and alums -- that I can call on if I want to, for example, start a new business."