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November 19, 2005

Professor Lisa Lynch speaks about politics, career and the modern woman

Years ago, a 6 year old Lisa Lynch dreamed of playing the cello at Carnegie Hall, while being conducted by Leonard Bernstein—a dream she nurtured all through high school. It was years later, while a freshman at Wellesley College, that she went to a master class at Harvard and heard YoYo Ma play, and stumbled upon a realization that was to change the course of her life. “I realized that I was never going to be that good”, she says. “It was a moment of stark realization; the course I was on had to be altered”. There had to be a Plan B, and that, in her case turned out to be economics.

Speaking to a group of students as part of Global Women’s Phenomenal Women Speaker Series, Professor Lynch gave rare insights into her professional and personal life: how she came to chose her career, the personal challenges she faced being a successful career woman and how she manages to balance the different facets of her life.

Professor Lynch graduated from Wellesley as an economics and political science major, and subsequently went on to do an MSc and PhD in economics from the London School of Economics in the field of labor economics. “I was a humanoid quantoid student, addressing policy questions using econometric techniques”, she recalls.

Professor Lynch’s first academic appointment was as a lecturer at the University of Bristol; she was the first woman faculty at the Department of Economics. Subsequently she went on to accept faculty positions at Ohio State University, MIT and ultimately, at Fletcher.

Along with her academic work, Professor Lynch has been an active policy-maker, having worked as Chief Economist for the Department of Labor, and now as a Director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Working in Washington gave her insights into how real policy-making happens. She found out that discussions on policies are not always rigorous analyses about the ramifications of various measures, but sometimes are reflections of what politicians think can be passed through Congress as legislation. In her role as Chief Economist, Professor Lynch realized that bringing in economists into the decision-making process helps policy makers think more about the substance of policy and less about the logistics of implementation.

Being able to advise policy makers is a wonderful experience for an academic. “The role of an academic is that of an honest broker”, she says. “It is a transforming experience for academics as well; you break away from the academic language that is so inaccessible to non-academics”.

In Washington, Professor Lynch worked on a number of interesting policy issues, such as the minimum wage law, restructuring education workshops, social security issues and welfare reform. Her most memorable experience happened during the Clinton administration, when the Department of Labor was pressured by other government agencies, as well as by the Republican Party, to lower the Consumer Price Index (CPI) by 1.1 percent points. Professor Lynch stood by Katherine Abraham, then Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in pushing the effort back because they felt that the 1.1 percent number was not an accurate measure of the CPI inflation. During that time, “I went to the most unpleasant meetings of my life”, she recalls. Ultimately, after rigorous analysis and research, the CPI measurement was reduced, but only by 0.2 percent, and not 1.1 percent as had been originally proposed.

Professor Lynch is well aware of the challenges being faced by today’s career women who have to juggle work and family. “Over the years it has been a real challenge to balance my career, family and also to keep up with the science of my field”, she says. “I have had to make real trade-offs, both professionally and locally at home”. Nevertheless, working has its advantages -- she cites research done by social scientists and psychologists that show that women who work are less likely than non-working women to have mental health problems such as depression.

Balancing her own intense professional life and her personal life with her daughter and husband has not been easy. Having put off starting a family until the relatively late age of 35 in favor of establishing her career, Professor Lynch and her husband had to struggle with having their daughter. “The price I paid because of the structure of the tenure clock is having one child, while I would have preferred to have a larger family”, she notes. “My hope is that women in the future will not have to make the same choice”.

Today, she achieves balance in her professional activities and family life by having a strong partnership with her husband. “I realize that at different times there will be different demands on my time. Of all my activities I chose to do a couple of things very well. I make few compromises with my family. I have learned to surrender control to my husband when it comes to my daughter. That sharing is important to make it work”, she says.

Professor Lynch still pays the cello actively. She played with the Newton Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall earlier this year, and three years ago she played at Carnegie Hall with the same orchestra. So her dream of many years came true. “Sometimes I feel a sense of chaos in my day to day activities, but looking back I feel a sense of contentment and happiness”.

Article by Shinjinee Chattopadhyay, MALD '07

Posted by jessica at November 19, 2005 08:54 AM