IRS Oversight Board

Most Americans don't think it's OK to cheat on taxes.

Americans may make plenty of jokes about cheating on their taxes, but a new survey finds that in reality most don’t think it’s OK to rob the tax man. Or at least, that’s what they’re telling the IRS Oversight Board.

The 2012 Taxpayer Attitude Survey, released Tuesday by the independent oversight board, finds that 87 percent of Americans don’t think it’s OK to cheat on your taxes. That’s a 3 percentage point increase from last year.

Only 11 percent think it’s OK to cheat, either a little or as much as possible.

Perhaps more surprising, 95 percent of Americans said their personal integrity influences them to report their taxes honestly, an 8 percentage point increase from five years earlier.

About 63 percent said they are influenced by fear of an audit, while 70 percent are motivated by third-party information that could show them to be a tax cheat.

The IRS Oversight Board, an independent body created by Congress in 1998 to oversee the Internal Revenue Service’s actions, completed its annual survey of 1,500 Americans last August and September. The survey has a 3.1 percent margin of error.

If they’re going to pay their taxes honestly, most Americans seem to think everyone else should, too.

The survey found that more than 90 percent of Americans think it’s important that the IRS ensures that low- and high-income taxpayers, small businesses and corporations honestly pay their taxes, too.

Those results appear to show that Americans have come to feel more strongly in recent years that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes, and the IRS should vigorously enforce tax laws.

The results come as many Americans are either getting ready to file their 2012 income tax returns, or already have done so.

They also follow a bruising battle in Washington over the so-called fiscal cliff, a series of tax hikes and spending cuts that were scheduled to take effect until Congress reached a last-minute deal.

The fiscal cliff agreement raised taxes for wealthy Americans earning $400,000 or more and allowed taxes on capital gains and dividends to go up. It also ended a payroll tax holiday, meaning that most Americans are seeing more of their paycheck going to the tax man for Social Security and other entitlements this year.

Honda

The Honda Fit She's, which is being released in Japan, claims to improve skin quality.

It used to be that car seats were designed for babies, and pens were made for people.

But these days, it seems like everyday products from diapers to cars are being offered in a version “for her” – and that version usually comes in pink.

Experts say the proliferation of products aimed at girls and women makes some sense. That’s because women are avid consumers of everything from cars to gadgets, and they can be pickier than men.

“They want all the same things (as) men, and then some. They want more,” said Marti Barletta, a consultant and author of “Marketing to Women.”

But that doesn’t mean companies are doing it right when they create, and market, products for women. In fact, Barletta and others say, many companies are hurting themselves by adding extras they think women will want – rather than the features they’d actually like to have.

Then they add insult to injury by marketing them in a way that some women perceive as condescending.

“Women don’t like being called out as a separate market,” Barletta said. “They’re like, ‘Why don’t cars have what we want?’”

The penmaker Bic’s line of pastel-hued pens “for her” received a comedic lambasting from Ellen Degeneres and have been mocked mercilessly on Amazon.com, where hundreds of men and women have posted of tongue-in-cheek reviews poking fun at the very concept of a pen for a woman.

“I use these wonderful little pens to draw pictures of butterflies and rainbows while watching ‘Steel Magnolias’ and eating bon-bons. Thank you, BIC! You have your finger on the pulse of the 21st century woman!” goes one typical review.

The carmaker Honda also got some pushback in the United States following its plan to launch the Honda Fit She's in Japan. The small car comes in pink and includes a climate control system that the carmaker says will improve skin quality, along with UV-blocking window glass.

"Stupid name, awful color, everyone needs protection from the sun's rays, and if they want to market to women, they need to think leg to pedal ratio, especially clutch, so you don't have to scoot the seat all the way up to the steering wheel," one Life Inc. reader complained.

Barletta said there are things that women would like to have in cars, like a convenient place to put a purse. But they also want the things men want, like safety, power and maneuverability.

Also, while women may actually like to have a product that comes in pink, many are turned off when that’s automatically assumed to be the ladies’ choice.

“Women like pink,” Barletta said. “What they don’t like is the statement that women like pink.”

Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist and author of the book “Pink Brain, Blue Brain,” said her research has shown that gender roles are somewhat innate but very much a product of socialization. That’s because people reinforce gender roles starting at a very young age.

Children tend to embrace gender roles because they want to fit in. That has led marketers to offer everything from toys to infant seats to diapers in both boys’ and girls’ versions – not coincidentally boosting their market size as they encourage parents to buy gender-specific versions of everyday items.

“Gender sells, there’s no question,” Eliot said. “It works beautifully for kids, and that’s why it’s been so hard to fight gender stereotypes.”

That continues into adulthood, and is especially true for teens and young adults who are dating and may feel more insecure about their masculinity or femininity, she said.

That could explain why there are entire websites devoted to pink handguns and you can even buy a casket with pink floral detailing.

Some say boys and men are actually the bigger losers in the push to specify everyday products by gender.

For girls these days, there are many choices on how to be feminine: They can be an athlete or a tomboy or even a girly girl, Eliot said.

Boys, on the other hand, are subject to a much narrower definition of what is masculine.

“There’s more social pressure on men to be manly, and the sanctions for men being feminine are more,” said David Gal, assistant professor of marketing at Northwestern University.

Gal said his research has shown that women aren’t bothered by purchasing a product geared toward men, such as a big truck or a phone with a "masculine" design.

But many men worry that they might accidentally buy something from the women’s department or choose a product with a feminine connotation.

"Even when I go to the clothes store, I'm looking for that sign to tell me that this is the men's section, so I know I'm not looking at women's clothing," Gal said.

Gal said some men were turned off when Sears, well-known for products like Craftsman tools and barbecue grills, launched an ad campaign touting its “softer side" in the 1990s.

By that logic, he noted, it’s actually surprising that marketers are spending so much time marketing to women, when men might be more receptive to a campaign that accentuated a product’s masculinity.

Some companies have picked up on that trend.

Soda makers have started creating low-calorie products for men without the word “diet” in them, like Coke Zero, since many associated diet drinks as being for women.

Others have introduced male-specific products like body washes for men. Philips even offers an iron designed to appeal to men.

That may be a marketing opportunity, but Gal said it’s not good news that guys feel like they need to conform to such a narrow definition of masculinity. He noted that some men don’t seek out mental health treatment because it doesn’t seem manly, and stereotypically manly foods like steak and burgers tend to be unhealthy.

Eliot, the neuroscientist, said she’s been heartened to see pro football players and other male athletes wearing pink in October, in a nod to breast cancer awareness. The trend seems to have trickled down to boys playing recreational sports, many of whom now can be seen sporting things like soccer cleats and accessories with bright pink accents.

“I think boys are starting to appropriate pink,” she said.

On the other side, Eliot said that things like plastic surgery are much more worrisome to her than a company that makes pens only for women.

“There are a lot worse offenses in terms of female objectification than buying pink pens,” she said.

Related: Bic pens for her united women and men in snarky Amazon reviews

American Association of University Women

New research shows the pay gap starts right after college graduation.

The gap between what female and male college graduates earn may start as soon as new grads collect their first paycheck.

A new analysis of government data finds that, on average, male college graduates were earning more than their female classmates just one year after graduation. The gap was persistent, although smaller, after controlling for factors such as choice of major and job.

“Women are making progress, for sure, in education and in the workplace,” said Christianne Corbett, a senior researcher with the American Association of University Women and an author of the report. “But the pay gap is real. It’s still there. That’s what’s so confounding about it.”

The AAUW took a look at what 2008 college graduates were earning one year later, in 2009. They found that on average, the female graduates who were working full time were earning 82 cents for every dollar their male peers were earning.

The average salary for women was $35,296, compared with $42,918 for men.

There are some factors that can at least partially explain that gap. Although more women are entering traditionally male-dominated fields, men are still more likely to pursue majors that can command higher paychecks, such as engineering and certain science fields, the researchers said.

Meanwhile, women remain more likely to gravitate to lower-paying fields like education and health care.

So the researchers controlled for factors such as what graduates majored in, where they went to college, what field they were working in, how many hours they worked and even their grade point averages.

They found that even after accounting for all those things, the female graduates were still earning about 7 percent less than their male peers.

“There’s good reason to believe that part of that unexplained gap is due to gender discrimination, and most of it is probably unconscious,” Corbett said.

Francine Blau, an economist at Cornell who has studied the wage gap extensively, said there are things that can be done to narrow the overall wage gap, such as getting more women to go into math and science fields that pay better.

Still, she said it’s also important to consider whether bias is to blame for the remaining 7 percent wage gap that can’t be explained by other factors. She noted that in the modern era, that doesn’t necessarily mean hiring managers are consciously deciding they should pay women less for the same work.

“Discrimination doesn’t have to conscious and overt. It can be subtle and even unconscious,” Blau said. “As we’re seeking to reduce that, we should bear that in mind.”

Blau said the 7 percent gap is likely smaller than it has been in years past.

Still, she noted, there’s other evidence to suggest that the gender difference in pay will get bigger as these women get older.  It’s not clear if that’s because women choose different career paths, slow their career for family and child care responsibilities or face bias.

“I’m guessing that if we could follow these women over the years, there’s a fair probability that the gap will widen,” Blau said. “But I think they’ll still be doing better than their predecessors.”

The research comes as more women than men are going to college, and it’s becoming increasingly common for women to pursue traditionally male-dominated fields. But even when women choose the same major as men, they still may not be getting as fat of a paycheck in return, the new data suggest.

Female business majors who graduated in 2008 were making an average $38,034 one year after graduating, compared with $45,143 male business majors.

Similarly, female engineers were making an average $48,493 a year after graduation, compared with $55,142 for men.

Wages were more likely to be equal for men and women who had majored in health care, education and the humanities.

Corbett said one explanation for this difference is that women are less likely to be using the degree they earned. She said research has found that men who get an engineering degree are more likely than women to get a job that requires that degree.

Other research has shown that women with science degrees are more likely than men to then take clerical or other administrative jobs.

The researchers also found that the wage gap was much wider for men and women who attended private, nonprofit universities than for those who attended public universities.

In general, women who work full-time, year-round earned 77 cents for every dollar a man earned in 2011, according to the latest Census data released last month. That gap has been relatively stable for years.

Other government data also has shown that women tend take home less money each week even when they are doing the same job as a man. For example, the median weekly earnings of a female medical scientist was 77.6 percent of the median weekly earnings for a man in the same field, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 2011.

Related:

Women face stubborn wage gap as wages fall for everyone

Amid recession, an uptick in wives ourearning their husbands

More women seeking MBAs but pay gap persists

Richard Neill almost certainly thought he was the wittier one.

Last week, he took to Facebook to rant sarcastically that a British feminine hygiene company had lied to him with all those commercials implying that getting one’s period is just an excuse for a series of joyful adventures.

Bodyform, the British company that makes the panty liners in question, showed him that they could not only take the criticism, they could do him one better.

On Tuesday, Bodyform posted a parody video of its own on YouTube and Facebook. In it, the company’s fake CEO apologized and fessed up about all those joyful feminine hygiene commercials.

“What you’ve seen in our advertisements so far isn’t a factual representation of events. You’re right. The flagrant use of visualizations such as sky diving, roller blading and mountain biking  - you forgot horse riding Richard – are actually metaphors. They’re not real,” the faux CEO, who they dubbed Caroline Williams, intones somberly. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but there’s no such thing as a happy period.”

The post came a few days after Neill’s rant went viral, prompting more than 84,000 Facebook “likes” and thousands of comments along the lines of “love this.”

In it, Neill opines that he grew up being jealous of all these women who got to spend their periods bike riding, dancing, parachuting and the like. Then, he said, he was faced with the reality of that time of the month when he “got a girlfriend.”

“There was no joy, no extreme sports, no blue water spilling over wings and no rocking soundtrack oh no no no,” he wrote.

Bodyform responded: “If Facebook had a ‘love’ button, we'd have clicked it. But it doesn't. So we've made Richard a video instead.”

Tim Calkins, a clinical professor marketing at Northwestern University, said the parody video response is exactly the type of marketing more companies need to be doing. He lauded the company for taking the risk of being funny and a bit edgy.

“The reason it works is it just feels very sort of real in that the company is listening and they’re responding and they have a sense of humor, but they also stick up for themselves,” Calkins said.

He noted that it’s also a world away from traditional marketing, in which companies may spend months carefully crafting messages and coming up with advertising campaigns.

“This, though, is an example of a company that’s building its brand but doing so in a way that is timely and authentic and funny,” he said.

Bodyform, which is based in the United Kingdom, was not able to comment as of press time. You can watch the full video on YouTube.

Census Bureau

The gap between women’s and men’s pay remained about the same for the fourth straight year in 2011, as both genders got slammed by lower wages.

Women earned 77 cents for every dollar a man earned in 2011, the Census Bureau said this week as part of its extensive annual report on income and poverty.

The female-to-male earnings ratio for full-time workers has been little changed for four years, after hitting a record high of 78 percent in 2007.

Experts say the latest figures show that women aren’t making significant gains in terms of earning power – but men aren’t either.

"It’s not that gap is not closing,” said Katherine Gallagher Robbins, senior policy analyst with the National Women’s Law Center. “It’s that wages are sort of flattening.”

For men who work full-time and year-round, inflation-adjusted median earnings fell about 2.5 percent between 2010 and 2011, to $48,202, according to the Census Bureau. For women working full-time, the median, or midpoint, of annual earnings also fell by about 2.5 percent, to $37,118.

Experts say that there are other factors at work besides the lousy job market. The wage gap narrowed slowly and in fits and starts through the 1980s and 1990s, but further gains have been tough to come by.

“As a broad trend, I think we have plateaued in a way, or we may have plateaued,” said Ariane Hegewisch, study director with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Women still face some big hurdles, especially those who want to have children and still advance in their careers, she said. Child care can be quite expensive, and some women may not be willing to put in the long hours required to make it to the top when their children are young.

The wage gap has persisted even though women have made huge inroads in traditionally male-dominated fields and positions. There have been several high-profile examples of that phenomenon, including Yahoo Inc.’s decision to appoint a pregnant Marissa Mayer to the role of chief executive.

Despite such gains, research shows that women generally take home less money each week even when they are doing the same job.

Women also now get postsecondary degrees at higher rates than men, and more education generally translates into higher earnings over the course of a lifetime. But experts note that what people study, and the fields they go into, matters as well.

“There’s a huge gender segregation there,” Hegewisch said. “Men get more technical (degrees) and women are in education and social work and the kind of softer sciences, and they pay less.”

The recession of 2007-09 was so hard on male-dominated fields such as construction that some referred to it as the mancession.  With men hit so hard, 38 percent of women outearned their husbands in 2009, a 3 percentage point increase from 2008.

But as the economy began recovering in 2009, it was women who fared worse in the job market. 

The situation has since become more of a mixed bag. In August, the unemployment rate for men was 8.3 percent. For women, it was 7.8 percent.

“I think the story right now is that everyone is struggling,” Robbins said. “Often when people think about the wage gap they think about it as women as compared to men. A lot of (families) have both women and men who are working. We think of it as a family security issue.”

Related: States with the biggest wage gap between men, women 

Getty Images stock

Want to get ahead at work? Put your shoes on, and save your nail clipping for after hours.

 Lori Hong was never particularly fond of the co-worker in the next cubicle, but there was one thing that really put her over the edge.

“He would freaking cut his nails at his desk,” said Hong, 32.

The nail clipping wasn’t just an occasional thing, either.

“I don’t know what vitamins (he was) taking, but he would clip his nails like two or three times a week,” she recalled.

After living in fear of a cuticle flying over the cubicle wall, or just of hearing that unmistakable clipping sound, Hong, who worked scheduling commercials for a television network, finally asked to be relocated to a new desk.

“No one should be doing that at work,” she said.

Workplace etiquette experts -- and much of the general public -- would agree. A survey of workplace pet peeves, released this week by temporary staffing firm Adecco, found nearly half of those surveyed are offended when people clip or bite their nails at work.

“It really elicits that gross factor because it is personal grooming,” said Jodi R.R. Smith, president of the etiquette training firm Mannersmith. “This is what I categorize as: Should take place in the bathroom, and preferably the bathroom at home.”

Public nail-clipping is such a common problem that Smith sometimes uses it as an example in a role play on how to get a co-worker to stop doing something that annoys you.

Her advice: Be direct.

For example: “I know that you probably have no idea, but when you clip your nails in the cubicle it totally grosses me out. I’m all for good grooming … but if you could do it in the ladies room or at home I’d really appreciate it.”

Smith started her Boston-area etiquette consulting business after dealing so often with issues like these while working in human resources. She said other common workplace gripes include people who floss their teeth at their desk or take off their shoes at work.

The Adecco survey also found that more than four in 10 people were offended by co-workers removing their shoes at the office. The telephone survey of 1,010 people, conducted in July, also found that the majority of those surveyed do not want to see you come to work in ripped jeans, flip-flops, strapless clothing or backless tops or dresses.

It can be tempting to slip off your shoes on a hot day, or even clip that offending cuticle without heading to the bathroom, but that can actually harm your career, Smith warns.

“People think, ‘Oh I’m a good worker, it’s not that big a deal,’ but I’ve had managers over and over again tell me, ‘Oh, Jodi, when we have to do another reduction I know who’s first on my list,’” Smith said. “These soft social skills really make a difference.”

Tim Gates has seen plenty of workplace faux pas in his 17 years placing temporary workers for Adecco. Nail clipping and shoe removal have come up, as well as people applying deodorant at their desks and those who show up in T-shirts with inappropriate slogans or logos.

Usually a quick chat about appropriate dress or behavior is enough to straighten things out. But a little common sense might help avoid such issues as well.

“Some things should be done at home and some things should be done at work,” he said. “Maybe keep those things separate.”

As for Hong, the cubicle dweller with the nail-clipping neighbor, she’s since left that job and moved from New York to Philadelphia because her husband was transferred.

She’s currently looking for work, and she jokes that one of the things she’s watching out for is whether her prospective co-workers clip their nails at their desks.

“Like, do you have that keychain with the nail clipper on it? That would be a turnoff,” she joked.

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 James Lee was having a friendly chat with the president of the university where he works when it happened to him: The awkward co-worker hug.

Lee, 44, and the university president were at a fundraising event, and Lee realized that there were other people waiting to talk to them. Forgetting for a moment that this was a professional and not a personal context, Lee went in for the hug instead of the handshake.

He can still recall in vivid detail what happened next.

“It was a long moment for me because halfway in, I realized what was about to happen. At that point, however, my body had already hit his outstretched arm that was expecting a handshake, and I knew that I couldn't call it off. I completed the awkward, inappropriate embrace,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Getty Images stock

Yes, this hug is a bit awkward.

Mortified, Lee found the nearest exit and made his escape.

In today’s casual office environment, where people wear shorts and flip-flops to work and are encouraged to bond with the boss at happy hour or other after-hours events, it can be hard to know whether to hug or not to hug.

“You usually don’t see in the code of conduct, ‘No hugging,’” said Pamela Eyring, president of The Protocol School of Washington, which offers business etiquette training. “So it makes the lines very blurred.”

Most office etiquette experts say that generally, an arms-off policy is best. And yet, most admit that they too have been in a situation where they’ve either given, or received, an awkward co-worker hug.

Lee, a sociology professor at San Jose State University, said the 2011 episode with his university’s president still embarrasses him. He thinks it’s partly because he’s openly gay, and he worried that the hug would be misinterpreted by others at the event.

After the incident, Lee only saw the university president once more before he retired.

“He came over and he stuck his hand out,” Lee said. “We shook hands, we talked.”

Etiquette and protocol trainer Rachel Wagner knows how Lee feels. She, too, recalls a social event where she was talking to a colleague and, in a sudden burst of joviality, hugged the woman.

“It just happened, like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m hugging,'” she said.

Almost immediately, Wagner realized she shouldn’t have hugged that person. But she never said anything, and the incident blew over.

The social trick of just pretending something didn’t happen often works best in such situations. If you do feel the need to address it, do so quickly and with humor, experts advise.

“A self-deprecating confession can make a world of difference,” said Jim Webber, who provides workplace training on preventing harassment and runs an advice blog called Evil Skippy at Work.

Webber says there are times when a hug at work is appropriate, such as when someone has just received terrible personal news or gotten word they have been laid off.

But even then there are ground rules.

For one, he says, you should think of the office hug like fishing: “Hug and release.”

“You should not be able to have a conversation at work while I hug you,” he said.

Also, your fingers should not move during the hug.

A hug can quickly turn inappropriate if it feels like the person is using it to gain power or bully other employees. Webber recalled one situation where a male employee was hugging female employees for just a little too long and with a smirk in his eyes. Asked about it, Webber said the man said that if the “little ladies” didn’t like it, all they had to do was tell him.

In another incident, he said, a female employee told male co-workers, “I’m just a cougar, give me a hug!” When one objected, Webber said she told him to “take it like a man.”

Even well-meaning hugs can make some people feel uncomfortable.

“Most of us don’t want that intimacy with our co-workers. We have to be with them 40 hours a week. We don’t want to hug them, too,” Webber said.

(Webber himself is not a hugger, although he’s had the equally mortifying experience of accidentally saying, “Bye-bye, sweetie” or “I love you” to a client when ending a phone conversation.)

An errant hug is generally not going to be enough to prompt a harassment complaint. Carol Miaskoff, assistant legal counsel for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said the line would be crossed if there was a clear and pervasive pattern of unwanted physical attention.

Still, it can be complicated, especially in workplaces where there’s a culture of hugging and affection. Her advice: If you don’t like hugging, make sure you are clear about it.

“A clear dividing line is if someone says, ‘Don’t hug me,’” she said.

Part of the issue is that American workplaces tend to be more casual than in most countries, and the lines between work and personal life are often blurred by everything from office romances to friending on Facebook.

“We’re a very casual nation, but there are still work environments that are very formal,” said Eyring, of the Protocol School of Washington.

Eyring said whether or not to hug also depends on where you are.

For example, she said a colleague visiting from another location might give her a hug if they meet at the office. But if they saw each other at a class she was leading, a handshake would send a more appropriate message.

“He’s showing respect,” she said.

A public hug, especially between a male and female co-worker, also can give the wrong impression that there’s more to the acquaintance than there really is.

Patti Johnson, a career coach and founder of the consultancy PeopleResults, advises people to use hugs sparingly and only when you’re sure the person will be amenable to it.

A big clue that you shouldn’t hug the person: The outstretched arm indicating that the person is clearly expecting a handshake.

In some cases, a hug can hurt more than it helps. Johnson recalled a time when she was part of a group selecting a vendor for a company. One of the candidates, whom she knew casually, greeted her with a big, and unexpected, hug.

“It was like he was trying to make it appear to the group that we were really good buddies,” she said.

That wasn’t the main reason he didn’t get the account, but it didn’t help.

On the other hand, Johnson said that when her mother-in-law passed away recently, she appreciated her co-workers’ kindness.

“I had a lot of hugs in the workplace and that was nice,” she said. “It wasn’t inappropriate.”

Donna Farrugia, executive director of the Creative Group, a staffing agency for marketing and advertising professionals, thinks people have become more conservative with such displays in recent years, as harassment awareness has become more widespread.

Still, she it would be sad if hugging were to become altogether taboo.

“I have clients that I’ve done business with for a long time, and you can kind of feel it as you walk toward each other (that) there’s going to be a little hug happening here, and it’s a good thing,” she said.

Readers, do you have any awkward or heartwarming stories about hugging at work? Tell us about it on our Facebook page, and we’ll feature some of your stories in a follow-up piece.

Steven Senne / AP file

These 2012 Harvard law school graduates likely face solid prospects, but that is not as true for many newly minted lawyers.

Lawyers have sometimes taken a ribbing for what they do, but until recently few questioned why they do it: For the good pay and job security.

You can’t necessarily count on either of those things anymore.

The weak economy, globalization and technological advances have dramatically changed the legal industry, and experts say that's leaving a glut of lawyers coming out of school with massive student loans, high hopes and few job prospects.

“There’s kind of an over-optimism that feeds the law school market,” said William Henderson, director of the Center on the Global Legal Profession at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law.

The National Association of Law Professionals reported last week the overall employment rate for class of 2011 law school graduates was the worst since 1994, with 85.6 percent of the 41,623 graduates holding a job nine months after graduation.

That may seem like a lot, but it turns out that many of those people don’t have the type of job that might expect after spending so much time and money on a law degree.

A year after getting their degrees only about 65 percent of last year’s law school graduates had a job that required them to have passed the bar, the association found. What’s more, nearly 10 percent were still looking for any job at all.

The longer-term prognosis isn’t so great, either. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment of lawyers will grow by only 10 percent between 2010 and 2020, while overall jobs are expected to grow by 14 percent.

The declining prospects come as more and more law firms, and their corporate clients, discover what manufacturers figured out a long time ago: Sometimes it’s cheaper to outsource your work. Experts say many companies now rely on cheaper legal minds in India, the Philippines and elsewhere.

Related: Storied law firm folds after partners flee

“Simple tasks like document review … can now be done in these offshore markets at much lower price points,” said James Leipold, executive director of the National Association of Law Professionals.

Some companies and law firms also are using more contract or temporary workers who cost a lot less than young associates and have little chance of being hired permanently.

The weak economy also has played a role. When companies started to see profits decline at the start of the recession, many took a hard look at their legal expenses and found areas where they could trim fat. Among other things, they told law firms they were no longer willing to pay high hourly rates for the work of young, inexperienced associates.

Henderson, the law professor, said there is also a crop of new legal entrepreneurs who are using technology to do legal work that was once done by hand, at higher cost and with more mistakes.

Those changes mean that big law firms don’t need as many young law school grads. That’s leaving a lot of young lawyers stuck in dead-end, entry-level or less lucrative jobs, or not practicing law at all.

Stephanie Tricomi graduated from Roger Williams University’s law school in 2006 with high hopes that she and her husband, also a law school graduate, would use their degrees for long and lucrative legal careers.

The couple moved from Rhode Island to Florida, she passed the bar exam and was quickly hired as a clerk for trial court judges.

She figured she would do that for a couple years and then move on to a big firm or her own practice, and a fatter paycheck.

“I thought, OK, well, this is a great starting point,” said Tricomi, now 31.

Her husband, meanwhile, thought he would start a career in real estate law, but then the housing market went bust. He ended up deciding to teach high school literature.

In late 2008, Tricomi began looking for a new job but found that few were available. Then, in early 2009, her husband was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. After a long and costly battle, he died in May 2011.

Six years after graduating from law school, Tricomi is still working as a law clerk, earning about $45,000 a year. She hasn’t had a raise since she started because of a pay freeze, and her own office hasn’t hired anyone since they brought her on.

Tricomi likes her job but she’d like to advance her career. So far, however, she hasn’t had luck finding another job.

Meanwhile, she’s grappling with about $80,000 in student loan debt. She said she gave little thought to the debt she was taking on when she started law school, thinking at the time that her lucrative career would make the loans more than worthwhile.

“You think, oh, well, that’s not that bad. When I come out, I’ll be making $100,000 at least,” she said.

Between regular bills and student loan payments, Tricomi is living paycheck to paycheck. That’s not what most people think when they hear what she does.

“Even now, when I tell people I’m an attorney they say, ‘Oh, you must be rich,’” Tricomi said. “That’s the assumption.”

Some critics blame law schools for the glut of lawyers, arguing they paint too rosy of a picture of life after law school to recruit more students.

The American Bar Association recently made changes aimed at giving a more accurate picture of the market for law school graduates, and how many are really taking home fat paychecks.

The changes come in the wake of harsh criticism from groups such as Law School Transparency. They have argued that law schools have distorted the numbers by hiring grads for a short period of time to bulk up employment numbers, for example, or only including the small sample who responded when reporting stellar average starting salaries.

“Everyone is saying, ‘Oh, law school is a great investment. It’ll be a way to make a lot of money,’” said Kyle McEntee, executive director of Law School Transparency. “It turns out that wasn’t actually true.”

McEntee, who graduated from Vanderbilt Law School in 2011, actually started the project before it became apparent just how tight the job market was going to get for lawyers. He says he doesn’t want to keep people from going to law school; he just wants them to go in with their eyes open.

“My goal is not to scare people away,” he said. “I just so happen to think that the informed decision is, don’t go.”

Leipold, of the lawyer’s association, thinks it’s possible that the class of 2011 represented the worst of things, and that job prospects will slowly start to improve. But he also said that some of the changes in the legal profession are likely permanent.

“I don’t expect a dramatic turnaround,” he said.

Already, there are signs that some are souring on the prospect of going to law school.

The number of people taking the LSAT, the test required for law school admission, has fallen sharply in each of the past two academic years. A total of 129,958 people took the LSAT in the 2011-2012 academic year, according to the Law School Admission Council.

That’s the lowest number in a decade.

Brett Deering for msnbc.com

Dustin Baylor closes his eyes while playing with his sons Paxton, 6, left, and Garrison, 4, after work at their home Friday, June 8, 2012 in Enid, Okla.

Dustin Baylor knew from the time he was in elementary school that he wanted to be a doctor.

All his life, he also wanted to be a dad.

What he wasn’t able to appreciate until adulthood was how challenging it might be to be awakened by his pager going off with a medical emergency just as often as by one of his three children having a bad dream, needing to go to the bathroom or just falling out of bed.

Baylor was one of dozens of dads who wrote to TODAY.com about doing it all: Excelling at work, raising kids, taking care of household chores and finding some time to spend with their spouse or partner.

Almost every dad we heard from said they wouldn’t want it any other way, although many conceded they sometimes struggle to make it through the day -- and night.

“I often feel overwhelmed trying to do it all," Baylor wrote. "I love my wife, my job and my family. But whereas men in past generations emphasized being a provider first and foremost, I think modern fathers take on many more roles."

The juggle between work and home life has long been a hot topic for women, many of whom have known from early on that they would work and raise children – and may even have watched their own moms do the same thing.

But many young dads are choosing to take a role in their home life that is more active than seen in any generation before, said Brad Harrington, executive director of the Boston College Center for Work and Family. That means they can be both less prepared for, and less adept at, juggling both roles.

“I think they are working really without a script,” Harrington said.

Related: Dad's survey shows fathers just want a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T

What’s clear is that more dads want to figure it out. Harrington and other researchers have noticed a clear and pervasive shift toward more dads choosing to do everything from change diapers to chaperone field trips.

“The expectation on the part of most fathers is they’re going to be much more engaged than their father was,” Harrington said.

And as more women work, and bring in a bigger chunk of the family’s earnings, Harrington notes that men also are finding that their spouses expect them to pitch in more on chores including laundry, dishes and grocery shopping.

“The expectation is, ‘I can’t do it all and you’re going to have to share,’” Harrington said.

Yet employers have not necessarily caught up with the evolving roles men are playing at home, leaving many feeling caught in the middle. A landmark study by the Families and Work Institute, released in 2009, found that dads actually feel more conflict between home and work life than moms do.

Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, said the research showed that even as home lives become more egalitarian, men continue to feel pressure to fill the traditional provider role by putting in long, hard hours at work.

Galinsky says the weak economy and high jobless rate likely have exacerbated the financial pressures.

“We expect that it will either maintain or increase the conflict that men experience,” she said.

Brett Deering for msnbc.com

Dustin Baylor and his family on in Enid, Okla. Baylor is among a new generation of dads trying to 'do it all.'

Tending to patients, and kids
Baylor, 34, and his wife, a physical therapist pursuing her doctorate, have three kids ages 6, 4 and 1. On a typical day, that means the couple has to get kids to daycare, a pre-K program and kindergarten before heading out for their own work days.

In the afternoon, Baylor’s wife picks up their oldest son from school and drops him off at Baylor’s medical practice, then goes back to finish up her workday. That means Baylor and his nurse, who also has a child to watch in the afternoons, have their children in the office as they finish up their work day.

Baylor admits it can be a challenge when the kids want to run down the halls while he has patients to attend to. But he describes fondly the way his son stands on the back of his chair, chatting about the school day, while he does office work.

He recently brought more toys into his home office so his kids can be nearby when he’s on call or dealing with paperwork.

“I’m actually used to working with kids orbiting,” he said.

The desire to be an active parent is one of the reasons Baylor opted to have a family practice in Enid, Okla., rather than join a hospital staff. The decision has meant less money but more flexibility to have a child at work or take off on a family vacation.

That’s one of many ways in which Baylor is different from his own dad, who worked as a mail carrier while his mom mostly stayed home while he was younger.

But it still can be hard to juggle. Baylor and his wife decided to have kids while he was a chief medical resident, and he says he wishes he had been able to help his wife out more in those early days. Another struggle came when his middle son started having seizures because of a rare health problem. He is doing fine now.

“I wish I could say that I have no regrets at all, but that really wouldn’t be true. I wish I could have taken more time to just be a dad when my first son was born. I wish I could have been around constantly to shelter my second son when all those seizures were happening instead of meeting him in the emergency room. I already wish I had even more time with my daughter individually, which is not a unique problem for the youngest child of any family,” he wrote in his response to TODAY.com.

Like a lot of dads, Baylor rarely gets time for date nights or other quality time alone with his wife.

While many face the same struggle, few have to go to the lengths John Martin does to be both a father and a spouse.

‘You just get a little exhausted’
Martin, 45, received an e-mail from his high school sweetheart, whom he hadn’t heard from in 27 years, soon after his marriage ended. When they finally met up nearly a year later, a whirlwind weekend together was all it took for them to realize they still had the feelings they’d had at age 16, and within a month they were engaged. 

But there was one big problem: Martin and his kids live in Denver, while his new wife and her kids live in the Seattle area.

Even as he made plans to remarry, Martin said he didn’t want to give up his major role as a parent to his two young girls. (He shares custody with their mother.)

“I was always changing diapers and putting them to bed and doing all the things that I think dads do these days,” he said. “It would be inconceivable for me not to have them at least half the time.”

To maintain his relationship with his kids and build a relationship with his new wife and teenage stepchildren, either Martin or his new wife fly back and forth to be with their spouse nearly every week. They’ve maintained that routine for close to two years, and Martin has cut his employment to 80 percent of full-time to balance it all.

“The way it worked was to leave the kids alone and to kind of rotate around them,” he said.

Martin savors watching his girls play softball and going out for family pizza night and says that while he loves his job as a lawyer, his wife and kids come first.

Still, the challenge of maintaining two households and commuting across several states can be disorienting, and tiring.

“You run low on energy in a way that your children can’t possibly understand,” he said. “Then you are a little less patient, a little less this, a little less that. You just get a little exhausted.”

The ‘all-encompassing man’
Anthony Noriega, 33, also sometimes finds himself struggling to keep up with the hectic schedule of raising four kids with his wife, who takes care of the kids and goes to school.

Like many parents, Noriega describes a life that can be a dizzying whirlwind of cooking, paying bills and getting everyone to bed after a long day at work as a web marketing specialist in Boise, Idaho.

Writing to TODAY.com, he described “the mystique of this elusive, all-encompassing man: The bread winner, the great father who engages in every aspect of their child’s lives, the super husband who can whip out a dinner with no trouble and still pay attention to his hard-working wife.”

He admits it doesn’t always go perfectly smoothly. But Noriega said his own parents struggled with addiction, and he knew from the time he was a teenager that he wanted to get married and raise his own family in a very different way. He may pine for a quiet moment, but he has no regrets about how things have turned out.

“My priorities are providing a stable foundation for my kids growing up (and)  not having to worry about whether or not they’re going to have school clothes, food on the table - the things that I had to deal with as a kid,” he said in an interview.

Some dads wrote to TODAY.com to remind us that not all of them have that struggle. Scott Bouma, 35, and his wife have four kids and his wife stays home full-time.

The fact that his wife is a stay-at-home mom means that Bouma, a software engineer who lives in Helena, Mont., feels  he can spend time with his family at night or on the weekends instead of dealing with a list of chores and errands he imagines dads with working spouses face.

 “I feel like I’m definitely the other side,” he said in an interview. “I’m a dad who doesn’t feel pressure to do all that stuff.”

Getty Images stock

Many are ditching the suit at the office, but you don't necessarily want to replace it with a denim miniskirt.

There was a time when what to wear to work seemed pretty clear. But these days it seems that trying to fit in at the office, fashion-wise, has never been more complicated.

On the one hand, there’s Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wearing his hoodie to meet with Wall Street bankers. Then there is Virgin mogul Richard Branson, who recently acquired a bank and quickly told his employees to ditch the tie.

On the other hand are companies like UBS AG, which only recently revised a demanding dress code that went right down to the underwear, and law firms where people reportedly have been fired for wearing matching colors.

The stakes are even higher this time of year, when many new graduates are entering the workplace for the first time, and even seasoned cubicle dwellers are feeling the pull of summer wear such as shorts and flip-flops.

“It’s extremely confusing,” said Diane Gottsman, a national etiquette expert and owner of the Protocol School of Texas. “It depends on the industry, it depends on the corporate culture (and) it depends on the boss -- what she or he either requires or tolerates.”

Experts say one big problem is that the rules seem constantly to be changing. There was a time when everyone would agree that a banking job required a suit and tie, but Branson holds the opposite point of view.

"In British banking, few things strike terror in the heart of a customer quite as much as the prospect of facing a tie-wearing, three-piece-suited bank manager across a huge mahogany desk," he wrote on Entrepreneur.com.

At the same time the weak economy has prompted some once-casual workplaces to step up the dress code, hoping to impress new clients and hang onto existing ones. A worker who doesn’t notice that trend also is at risk of getting left behind.

Related: Dads, do you feel pressure to do it all?

Then there are perils to overdressing in an office where casual dress is the norm, and sticking out because you’re the stiff in a suit while everyone else is dressed in khakis or jeans.

That could be a problem if you worked for Branson, the brains behind the multifaceted Virgin brand.

“Suits and ties in an office are just another type of uniform, but in an arena where uniforms no longer serve any useful purpose,” he wrote in the Entrepreneur piece.

Zuckerberg made a similar, if less overt, statement when he was seen talking up Facebook’s initial public offering dressed in slouchy

clothes more suited for a college dorm. Would-be Facebook employees might want to take their cues from that.

Life Inc. asked some etiquette experts for tips on navigating fashion land mines at the office.

Ask around:If you are starting a new job or moving to a new office, author and business etiquette expert Barbara Pachter said the best approach is to simply ask your new boss or human resources manager if there is a dress code. If not, ask how people generally dress and try to follow suit.

First impressions matter:Everyone likes to believe that what they do matters more than how they look, but Pachter notes that, in reality, how you present yourself can be key to succeeding. A person who is always in a suit when everyone else wears jeans, or someone whose clothes are a little too tight, will quickly become known for that style of dress.

Pachter recalled a consultant who was constantly told to dress casually and yet kept showing up in a tie. One day, his boss took a pair of scissors and cut the tie off.

“What you do is you end up creating trademarks,” she said, “and some are good and some are bad.”

Dress to impress your customer, not your boss:Gottsman notes that Zuckerberg and Branson can get away with dressing as they please because they’re already earned their fortune.

Chances are, you haven’t. And that means you may have to even ignore your boss’s cues in order to present the right image when meeting with clients.

“You dress for your moneymaker, (and) the bottom line is the moneymaker is the client,” Gottsman said. “You dress to make them feel comfortable because that’s really what it’s all about.”

Dress well, even if you dress casually: Even if your office is jeans-and-T-shirts kind of place, both Gottsman and Pachter say it’s important to make sure you are wearing clean jeans and a tidy shirt.

Grooming habits matter, too: Keep your hair cut and nails trimmed, and don’t forget to wear good shoes even if the standard at your office is sneakers instead of heels.

Don’t be tempted by flip-flops, even in the summer months, and save your halter tops for the weekend.

“You don’t want to look like you’re going to the beach because you still want to look credible, and you don’t want your clothes to be a distraction,” Pachter said.

Dress a little, but not a lot, nicer than everyone else: If you’re ambitious, you may want to consider dressing for the job you want, rather than the job you have. But Pachter warns that you shouldn’t dress as if you are CEO-in-waiting. That’s going to alienate you from everyone else, too.

Related:

Flip-flops are a bigger office don’t than strapless tops

Mike Blake / Reuters

A pair of elderly couples view the ocean and waves along the beach in La Jolla, Calif. More couples over 50 are living together (minus the marriage certificate) and for many money is a big factor.

Shacking up. It's not just for the kids anymore.

The number of people over age 50 who are living together romantically has more than doubled in a decade, from 1.2 million in 2000 to 2.75 million in 2010, according to an analysis of government data done by Bowling Green State University.

The 50-plus group represents nearly one-third of the approximately 7.5 million people of all ages who were living together in 2010, the researchers found.

But while young people tend to be testing the waters for marriage, experts say older people aren’t necessarily living together as a step toward tying the knot. They're doing it for the money.

“(They want to) enjoy many of the benefits of marriage without the burdens,” said Susan Brown, a professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who led the research.

Older couples may want to protect their individual nest eggs so they can pass the inheritance down to their kids. They also may not want to jeopardize a pension, Social Security payment or other benefit they are receiving because they are divorced or widowed. And they may not want to be financially responsible for the other person’s health care bills.

Some also may have a “been there, done that” mentality about marriage, Brown said. Her research found that 71 percent of older couples living together were divorced, and another 18 percent were widowed. On the other hand, she found, older people who end up remarrying are disproportionately widowed. (Brown has done other research looking at the surging divorce rate among older Americans.)

Tom Blake was 53 when his third marriage ended, and after the divorce was finalized he knew he wanted to start dating again. But he didn’t want to get married for a fourth time.

“I wasn’t looking for marriage, but I definitely wanted a relationship that was comfortable, enjoyable and non-confrontational,” he remembers.

Blake, who owns a deli in Dana Point, Calif., found that dating after age 50 was much harder than he had expected. His experiences eventually became fodder for a column and website that he’s been writing for almost 18 years.

Now 72, he’s been living with a woman for 11 years. They split their expenses evenly but keep their finances separate, an arrangement that he says has served them very well.

“What I learned for my own self was that I did not need to be married to be happy,” he said.

Some people prefer to keep their financial lives even more separate. Blake said he also hears from a lot of older people who are in long-term, committed relationships but don’t live together. He said some do that to keep the peace with their kids or grandkids who don’t like the idea of a live-in relationship.

Brown, the sociology professor, said the “living apart together relationship” is one she also knows exists but has had trouble quantifying.

“They’re very committed to each other (but they) don’t want to give up the autonomy that they have,” she said.

Although economics play a major role in these late-in-life relationship decisions, Brown said there are also noneconomic reasons older couples aren’t getting hitched.

Brown said some older women want a live-in relationship, but there’s something about actually getting married that seems stifling.

“They’ve taken care of one husband and raised one family, and they don’t want to do that again,” Brown said. “And they feel that if they get married that’s the underlying expectation.”

After Meghan Bach learned last year that her husband’s identity had been stolen to collect a fake tax refund, she spent perhaps 200 hours working to resolve the issue with the IRS and other agencies.

She thought she had been successful until the family returned home from a vacation this month to find that her husband’s identity had been stolen again.

 “It’s just appalling,” she said.

The IRS has acknowledged that identity theft tax fraud –- stealing someone’s Social Security number to file a fake tax return and collect a bogus refund –- is one of the most complex issues it deals with. Victims describe hours of phone calls, piles of correspondence and long periods of silence in which they aren’t sure whether their problems are being resolved or not.

The tedious process has left some victims worried about what will happen when they file this year’s tax returns.

“Of course I’m nervous,” said Dr. Vera Rosado, 33, who found out last year she was a victim and still has not been able to get it resolved with the IRS.

Rosado, a physician studying infectious diseases in Indianapolis, was recently told to file her fraud affidavit for a second time and her 2010 return for a third time after previous filings was lost. She said the IRS has told her it could take another few months to get the new paperwork processed.

She is waiting to get an approximately $3,000 refund check from last year’s return, which she plans to use toward medical board exams.

The IRS estimates 404,000 people were victims of identity theft tax fraud from mid-2009 to the end of 2011, and officials say the problem is growing.

The agency recently set up a specialized unit to just to deal with identity theft tax fraud, and it is expanding its screening process aimed at flagging this type of fraud. The issue also has attracted the attention of the some U.S. Senators. On Tuesday, a finance subcommittee held a hearing on the matter.

The IRS said it could not comment on specific cases such as Rosado’s and Bach’s because of privacy laws.

Experts say the IRS is working hard to root out identity theft tax fraud in the approximately 140 million tax returns that come in each year. But some believe the problem will get worse before it gets better because it will take time to train staff members to root out and deal with such issues.

“For the next four to five years it’s going to be a learning curve for everybody across the country,” said Jay Foley, a partner with ID Theft Info Source.

Foley said one issue is that IRS employees who aren’t part of the identity theft unit may not know how to handle such complaints. That’s why they might audit tax forms instead of use them in an investigation, for example, or not file paperwork correctly.

He recommends that anyone who is a victim of such fraud work directly with the identity theft unit and also contact the Taxpayer Advocate, an independent agency charged with assistant taxpayers who are having problems.

Foley said the bad news is that there is little people can do to shield themselves from such fraud attempts.

“There’s absolutely nothing that can be done at this point in time that’s going to give you a guarantee of safety,” he said.

Bach, a real estate agent who lives in San Diego, found out her husband had been a victim of identity theft tax fraud in March 2011, when she tried to file their taxes and learned that someone had already filed a return using her husband’s name and Social Security number.

Over the next year, she said she spent several hours each week working with the IRS and other government agencies to get the fraud resolved on behalf of her husband, a military doctor.

At one point, she sent the IRS summaries of her past 10 years of tax returns in order to prove that she and her husband were the true taxpayers. Instead, she said, the IRS audited one of those returns and presented her with a bill for nearly $900.

She paid that bill, then successfully contested a later IRS attempt to audit another past return she had provided to prove her family’s identity.

Eleven months later, the family finally got its refund for the 2010 return and she figured the issue had been resolved. But a few weeks ago, they returned from a Disneyland vacation to find letters from the IRS that had been addressed to her husband had instead been sent to an address down the street that had recently been used as a rental. The mail had been returned to the post office and redelivered to Bach.

One letter, sent to the other address, was informing the family that they had once again been victims of tax fraud for the 2011 tax year. The second letter said that a refund of more than $10,000 was being applied to an existing balance of more than $12,000 that the letter said the family owed the IRS.

Bach said the family had not yet filed their 2011 taxes and was not scheduled to receive a $10,000 refund for the year. They also did not owe the IRS any money – in fact, after their fraud had been resolved, she said the IRS had sent them a refund for 2010 with interest.

Bach surmises that the fraud might have occurred at the address where the IRS correspondence was sent. She doesn’t know if the IRS sent any other correspondence to that address.

Bach and her husband immediately went to the local IRS office to get the address issue corrected. In addition, she said she has left multiple messages with the IRS identity theft case manager she has been working with but has not heard back. She plans to file her real 2011 tax return this week.

Bailey Yahraus, 30, found out four years ago that her husband and young children’s Social Security numbers had been used to file a fraudulent return. The couple got it resolved, and for the next couple years they used a tax filing service to file their returns with no problems.

This year, Yahraus decided to file her return herself using an online tax service. That’s when she found out that her children’s Social Security numbers had already been used by someone else claiming them as dependents.

Yahraus, who lives in Montpelier, Ohio, has been trying to figure out how she can keep the Social Security numbers from being used fraudulently again. She’s worried about what effect the ID theft might have on her kids when they become adults.

But after a rough few years in which both she and her husband lost their jobs and got new ones, she hopes to shield them for now.

“They’re 8- and 9-year-old boys,” she said. “They’re worried about baseball, basketball (and) football.”

Related:

IRS faces surge in identity theft tax fraud