Here’s something to chew on with your morning coffee:
For all the brouhaha about women exiting the workforce in droves to be on the “mommy track,” a new study poo-poos the exodus and concludes that women are just as fervently running the rat race as ever.
A new study in the latest American Sociological Review finds that fewer than 8% of women born since 1956 left the workforce for a year or more during their childbearing years. In fact, the number who work more than 50 hours per week increased from less than 10% among women born before 1935 to 15% among those born after 1956. Finally, mothers with young children working full time has risen to 38% for women born from 1966 to 1975, up from 6% of women born from 1926 to 1935.
So then where did the whole “opt-out revolution” come from? If women are not only not leaving the workforce in large numbers but actually are working more, was it all in our minds? Just wishful thinking among working mothers who wish they could choose more easily between family and work? I doubt it.
For one thing, of the generation born before 1935, of course hardly any women worked. This study doesn’t exactly break ground there. Nor is it shedding bright light on the fact that in the post-World War II era, significantly more women worked than during the previous generation, and that more women in Gen X and Y work full-time than their mother’s generation.
However, three generations of women (those born after 1956) are taken as one group for the purposes of this research. Clearly, workforce patterns have changed over the course of a generation, let alone three. Among those changes has been more women who have decided to leave the workforce to be at home with their children. For my part, I’m on the young end of Gen X or the old end of Gen Y (however you’d like to slice it) and I actually know as many, if not more, women who left the workforce to stay home with their kids than I do working mothers like me.
So I know that the opt-out phenomenon isn’t all hype, but perhaps it has been overblown. Although there are some women who have concluded that trying to decide between work and family is no choice at all, many of us still are working both outside the home and inside. It’s important for benefit managers and senior execs to remember that we need our paychecks just as much as the men do, so equal pay is vital. And we want to succeed just as much, so don’t be afraid to promote us because you’re worried we’re going to run off to tend to our babies. But at the same time, we miss our babies terribly when we’re in the office, so flexible scheduling is paramount as well. I didn’t say working mothers were easy to please, but we work hard at two full-time jobs, so it’s important for employers to try.
For all the brouhaha about women exiting the workforce in droves to be on the “mommy track,” a new study poo-poos the exodus and concludes that women are just as fervently running the rat race as ever.
A new study in the latest American Sociological Review finds that fewer than 8% of women born since 1956 left the workforce for a year or more during their childbearing years. In fact, the number who work more than 50 hours per week increased from less than 10% among women born before 1935 to 15% among those born after 1956. Finally, mothers with young children working full time has risen to 38% for women born from 1966 to 1975, up from 6% of women born from 1926 to 1935.
So then where did the whole “opt-out revolution” come from? If women are not only not leaving the workforce in large numbers but actually are working more, was it all in our minds? Just wishful thinking among working mothers who wish they could choose more easily between family and work? I doubt it.
For one thing, of the generation born before 1935, of course hardly any women worked. This study doesn’t exactly break ground there. Nor is it shedding bright light on the fact that in the post-World War II era, significantly more women worked than during the previous generation, and that more women in Gen X and Y work full-time than their mother’s generation.
However, three generations of women (those born after 1956) are taken as one group for the purposes of this research. Clearly, workforce patterns have changed over the course of a generation, let alone three. Among those changes has been more women who have decided to leave the workforce to be at home with their children. For my part, I’m on the young end of Gen X or the old end of Gen Y (however you’d like to slice it) and I actually know as many, if not more, women who left the workforce to stay home with their kids than I do working mothers like me.
So I know that the opt-out phenomenon isn’t all hype, but perhaps it has been overblown. Although there are some women who have concluded that trying to decide between work and family is no choice at all, many of us still are working both outside the home and inside. It’s important for benefit managers and senior execs to remember that we need our paychecks just as much as the men do, so equal pay is vital. And we want to succeed just as much, so don’t be afraid to promote us because you’re worried we’re going to run off to tend to our babies. But at the same time, we miss our babies terribly when we’re in the office, so flexible scheduling is paramount as well. I didn’t say working mothers were easy to please, but we work hard at two full-time jobs, so it’s important for employers to try.
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