More Moms Want Part-time? by Robert Drago

Posted 28 July, 2007 in Uncategorized

The PEW Research Center just released “From 1997 to 2007: Fewer Mothers Prefer Full-time Work,” by Paul Taylor, Cary Funk and April Clark. Basically, using a fairly large survey sample, the percentage of employed moms reporting full-time work as ideal fell from 34% to 21% over the period, Viagra Oral Jelly while among non-employed moms the percent wanting full-time employment fell from 24% to 16%. The other big jumps, however, were for employed moms preferring part-time (up from 48% to 60%) and for non-employed moms preferring to stay at home (39% to 48%). Among dads, 12% would prefer part-time, and 16% to stay at home (this seems pretty big by historical standards). So I guess Arlie Hochschild was correct that the gender revolution stalled over issues of care in the ’80’s and ’90’s, and now we’re moving backwards pretty quickly… Who knows, maybe we’ll bring back ‘welfare as we knew it’ and start paying moms to stay home (again :). For the full report, see PEW Report.

5 comments to “More Moms Want Part-time? by Robert Drago”

Mindy Fried, July 29th, 2007 at 11:02 am:

• Hi Bob,

  Just a few thoughts in relation to the data you presented from Pew Research Center’s piece. There are so many factors that contribute to an increased percentage of women preferring to work part time, including:
  * the continued acceptance within our culture of women as primary caregivers, although there is a greater acceptance (and interest) among some men to be involved caregivers;
  * the lack of public policy that addresses work life balance needs of women and men;
  * the lag in responsiveness from the private sector to these needs (or shall we say, failure to address more broadly, on a cultural level, an employee-friendly workplace);
  * increased “wealth” (or rather, resources) among a percentage of the population which makes it possible for the “family wage” to equal 1 1/2 salaries (i.e., that half-job salary is STILL needed.);
  * the notion that taking care of children is important for child development (not such a new concept!);
  * the failure of government and the private sector to adequately support the improvement of quality in formal childcare settings (early care and education is now the accepted language). Some people may not have a “choice” and must use “inferior” care, but some perceive that they do have a “choice”. — There is a movement towards universal prekindergarten, mainly for four-year-olds, but in some states there is a leaning towards serving three-year-olds - so it would be interesting to see where the data falls in terms of number of years women choose part-time versus full-time work…
  * a pervasive double standard regarding which mothers (middle-class) are good mothers for not working for pay or working part time, and which other mothers (working class/poor) are not good mothers are not working for pay and working part time.
  And probably if I thought a little bit more, I’d come up with some more factors at play!

  All the best,
  Mindy

Roz Barnett, July 29th, 2007 at 1:06 pm:

• I am surprised that the study is still getting so much play in the media. In fact it was a study of a small sample (259 working mothers, 153 at home mothers), the questions were poorly worded, and the margin of error was very high.

  To start with the study doesn’t define what “part-time” work means. “Part-time” has long been a term used to describe very casual, usually low-paid jobs. In the PEW study, a female doctor who chooses to work four days a week instead of five is tossed into the same category as the bored housewife who works a few hours a week at a local retail store.

  Also, the PEW study asked working mothers what their “ideal” work situation would look like, and most respondents said they’d like to work less. Who wouldn’t—especially in today’s pressured, on-call-all the-time work culture. But the study didn’t ask women, for example, whether they would prefer to work part time if such jobs offered much lower wages, little opportunity for advancement, and boring work.

  And what women say they want is at odds with what they actually do. In the US, just 24 percent of working mothers have part-time hours, labor statistics show, and mothers working part time have not increased in number in the last decade. No wonder. Most part-time jobs are crummy jobs, with little prestige and low pay. Past research shows that most workers, men and women, say they’d prefer to work fewer hours if they could do so with no great loss in pay—but wouldn’t cut back if they’d earn a lot less.

  What mothers most likely want is not part-time, pin-money jobs, but good jobs that give them flexibility to spend time with their families.

  U. S. working mothers might want fewer hours, even if they can’t afford to work fewer hours because they have fewer supports than women in other countries:
  • 37 countries guarantee parents some type of paid leave when children fall ill. The US does not.
  • 163 countries offer paid maternity leave. The US does not.
  • All industrialized countries except Australia offer paid family and medical leave, the US does not. And Australia guarantees a full year of unpaid leave while the US offers 12 weeks.
  • 45 countries offer paternity leave. The US does not.
  • 96 countries mandate paid annual leave. The US does not.
  • The US is tied for 39th with Ecuador and Surinam for enrollment in early- childhood education for 3-5 year olds.

  Moreover, the PEW study gives the impression that women are looking for more family time while fathers seem unconcerned about this issue. Again, that’s not what the larger research picture says.

Kathie Lingle, July 29th, 2007 at 10:16 pm:

• I had just finished reading the article by Eyal Press in today’s (July 29) Sunday New York Times magazine entitled “Do workers have a fundamental right to care for their families?” when I discovered this particular blog discussion. Since my own blog (www.awlp.org) has devoted a lot of time recently to what appears to be an increasing amount of media coverage about the needs and wants of working women, families, and (yes!) even men, I thought I’d join in with a few observations of my own.
  First, I’m relieved to hear Roz’s analysis of the quality of the Pew research study, because I galloped through the report while being hotly pursued by a reporter to comment on it, and it felt meager to me, but I didn’t have time to research the research. So my first point is that in this age of the quick, undigested soundbite, it doesn’t take much to create a trendline when it comes to purported facts about what’s up with women. Consider Lisa Belkin’s ability to establish an entire non-existant “revolt” with far fewer data points and no scientific approach whatsoever. No matter what the facts are, that story just won’t die. This one probably won’t either, since they play on the same core notion that women are less than totally committed to the workplace.

  My second observation is that we are hearing much more than is normally tolerated about the comparisons between support for workers and families here in the U.S. vs. (any!) other countries. Roz just reviewed the list. This information was reiterated in the recent hearing on work and family in the House of Representatives last month (in itself an intriguing development; supposed a first of a series, altho this is not clear). It was echoed in the pages of the DOL’s recent report that summarizes the tens of thousands of comments it solicited about the FMLA last winter. I’m hoping against hope that this might be one tiny but not insignificant shred of evidence for Mary Devereaux’s (the futurist) contention that when something is genuinely untenable (like our healthcare system and our lack of Federal family policy), it will (eventually) break apart and be replaced. With what, we might ask? I personally think that is in large part our collective responsibility, those of us who operate at the intersection between the worker, the family, the workplace and the community. I can’t help being occasionally excited by the prospect of all the change that is going to overtake Washington, D.C. in the next 2 years. Maybe some of it will be positive. Is it prophetic or mere coincidence that my own organization is opening an office in DC at the end of this year?

Anne Nolan, July 30th, 2007 at 8:52 pm:

• I really like Kathie Lingle’s comment that it’s “in large part our collective responsibility” to create change. I think “collective” is the operative word.

  I took a labor economics course in 2002, at which time I had a 4-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son, and as the class moved through each unit of the course, I shook each concept and thumped on it and held it up to bright light and asked it to explain “WHY?” Why had my time had been worth upwards of $35 per hour (in 1999 dollars) when I had been willing to supply it in 50-hour-per-week chunks, but now that I was only willing to work 35 hours per week or less, my time was only worth about $10 per hour (in 2002 dollars) for the same credentials and skill set? A 71% penalty! Surely it couldn’t be THAT cumbersome to manage part-timers in the workforce? And the cost of benefits didn’t explain it - I was perfectly willing to take no-benefits jobs because my husband had good insurance, but I still couldn’t get anywhere near my former wage. Finally when we reached the concept of “signalling,” I said “Bingo!” Just as employers prefer college degrees for jobs that don’t require them because a college degree handily signals that the employee can work responsibly toward a long-term goal, I think the willingness to work long hours is a signal that employers use to handily measure intangibles like commitment and dedication. As long as we’re all competing as individuals against one another, each of us trying to show that we’re the ideal worker, the power of that signal continues unabated. It’s only when we collectively insist on change that we’ll finally see it.

  I think the measure that would create the most change would be to enact part-time parity legislation. If people could cut back their hours without getting fired and without taking a 70% hit on their per-hour pay, you’d see so many women and men asking for reduced schedules that it would become a new norm. Parents of young children want it, people approaching retirement want it, Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers want it. If we protect the right to ask for it, the demand will be there.

Judith Stadtman Tucker, July 31st, 2007 at 6:21 pm:

• I agree with earlier observations that the survey results on mothers’ preferences was pretty weak, although it did compare fairly closely to mothers’ work preferences in more qualitative studies like the 500 family study.

  What concerned me more in the survey findings was the public’s animosity — or at best, ambivalence — concerning the value of maternal employment. Only 22 percent of all adults surveyed feel the rise in maternal employment has been “a good thing” for society. (Those findings were more stable than the mothers-only portion of the survey.) Attitudes in this regard have also changed over time, but it’s significant that 40 percent of a nationally-representative sample of Americans still feel that maternal employment is a blight, rather than a benefit to the nation. It’s possible to parse those findings too, of course, and I’d be interested in hearing what other people have to say. But under the circumstances, my concern is that legislation for part-time parity and the right to request shorter or flexible work hours — which I agree is necessary and actively support — is going to make it easier for some women to integrate paid work and family responsibilities, but not increase mothers’ and caregivers’ equal opportunities for advancement, or induce employed fathers to share caregiving more fully. If you’re a mother in the paid workforce today, you’ve got to contend with the reality that a whole bunch of people think you really shouldn’t be there. And I find it hard to believe that this bias against maternal employment, even when it’s not outspoken, doesn’t shape mothers’ work experiences or employment preferences. Indeed, there is plenty of solid research suggesting that gender stereotyping and cognitive bias affect mothers’ employment outcomes.

  I think public opinion about the value of maternal employment is something recent work-life research hasn’t given enough attention to in discussions about the need for more and much better work-life reconciliation policy in the U.S. (That’s my impression, anyway — I’m happy to be corrected.) And I’m worried that the policy solutions the public is most likely to support in the near future are likely to be a sort of hybrid approach which will reduce the most egregious economic and occupational penalties associated with motherhood and caregiving but keep working women with one foot glued to the kitchen/nursery room floor, and not transform the ideal worker norm for men and elite white-collar workers.

  I wrote more about the Pew Survey here:
  http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=whats_a_working_mother_worth

  Sign me frustrated — JST

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