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Part II: Speed
Article 2
Why Did Married Mothers Go To Work?
[Time 2 ]
Claude Fischer, at Made in America, argues that the biggest change of the last 50 years is the increase in the number of mothers in the workforce. From the beginning of last century till now, that rate has accelerated precipitously:
While some women have always worked (at unpaid housework and childcare, selling goods made at home, or in paid jobs), most women now work outside of the home for pay. So long “traditional” family. Why the change? Fischer explains:
First, work changed to offer more jobs to women. Farming declined sharply; industrial jobs peaked and then declined. Brawn became less important; precise skills, learning, and personal service became more important. The new economy generated millions of white-collar and “pink-collar” jobs that seemed “suited” to women. That cannot be the full story, of course; women also took over many jobs that had once been men’s, such as teaching and secretarial work.
Second, mothers responded to those job opportunities. Some took jobs because the extra income could help families buy cars, homes, furnishings, and so on. Some took jobs because the family needed their income to make up for husbands’ stagnating wages (a noteworthy trend after the 1970s). And some took jobs because they sought personal fulfillment in the world of work.
And married working mothers changed the economy as well. Once it became commonplace for families to have two incomes, houses, cars, and other goods could be more expensive. Things women had done for free — everything from making soap and clothes, to growing and preparing food, and cleaning one’s own home — could be commodified. Commodification, the process of newly buying and selling something that had not previously been bought and sold, made for even more jobs, and more workers, and so the story continues…
[315 words]
Source: The society pages
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/05/07/why-did-mothers-go-to-work/
Article 3
Married mothers who make work sacrifices are happier
[Time 3 ]
Two facts are often obscured in the public conversation devoted to women, work, and family. First, the vast majority of married mothers don’t want to work full-time. Second, married mothers who are able to cut back at work to accommodate their family’s needs tend to be happier. Mothers and fathers were asked by Pew if they had made family-related sacrifices for work—from quitting their job to turning down a promotion. Pew found that 65 percent of mothers had made such a family-related sacrifice, compared to 45 percent of fathers. Women married with children were more likely to be “very happy” with their lives if they made a family-related work sacrifice. By contrast, the happiness of married men was not significantly related to making work sacrifices for their families. What does this data really tell us? These results do not prove that spending less time at work makes women happier. It could be, for instance, that happier women are more likely to make work sacrifices, in the first place. Or it could be that more affluent mothers, who are more likely to be happy above a certain level of income, can spend more time with their families than poorer moms.
[207 words]
[Time 4 ] Most (married) mothers would prefer not to work full-time, and the most popular option for women, when it comes to juggling work and family, is part-time work. A New York Times/CBS Newssurvey this year found that 49 percent of mothers wished to work part-time, compared to 27 percent who wished to work full-time. This data suggests that one reason married mothers who make work sacrifices are happier is that they would prefer to scale back at work—at least for some portion of their lives as mothers—and are happier when they can do so. This reality is often glossed over in the public conversation about work, women, and family, but as Catherine Rampell at The New York Times observed: “Not everyone aspires to be an executive at Facebook, like [Sheryl] Sandberg, or to set foreign policy, like Anne-Marie Slaughter” (author of “Why Women Can’t Have It All”).” Instead, as K.J. Dell’Antonia put it, most women are “striving for flexibility and balance” when it comes to juggling their aspirations for success at home and work. Again, in the public conversation and the formulation of public policies regarding work and family, let us not forget that the happiest married mothers are those who are able to lean homeward, at least for a season in their lives.
[229 words]
Source: You Dao
http://www.shanbay.com/forum/thread/262951/
Article 4
Best-educated moms are also more likely to 'opt out,' research finds
[Time 5]
The moms who graduate from the nation's best universities are also among the least likely college grads to be working full-time - or at all - a new analysis of government data finds.
About 70 percent of married moms who attended top-tier universities such as Princeton and Harvard were employed in 2010, the analysis showed.
That compares to about 80 percent of married moms who attended the nation’s least competitive universities, said Joni Hersch, the law and economics professor at Vanderbilt University who prepared the data. The married moms from the nation’s best universities also tended to take more time out of the workforce than those who attended the least competitive universities, and to work fewer hours if they did work at all, she said. About 45 percent of the married moms from the best universities were working full-time, compared with about 57 percent of the married moms from the least selective universities.
Hersch’s analysis looked at married women between ages 21 and 54 who also had children under age 18, and is based on the National Survey of College Graduates, which provides government data on around 77,000 college graduates.
“Every dimension showed lower labor market activity,” Hersch said.
Hersch said she thinks the results are surprising in that women who attend the best universities in the country would seem to be the most coveted potential employees. That means that employers would presumably be more likely to accommodate their desire for work/life flexibility.
“The flexibility alone doesn’t explain it,” she said. “The elites are going to dominate the non-elites in terms of flexibility.”
She thinks it’s possible that the married moms who attended the most prestigious universities are more likely to work part-time, or not at all, in part because they can afford to do so.
That’s because other research has shown that graduates from top schools are more likely to come from wealthy families and to marry men who also attend prestigious universities and come from similarly wealthy families. That could give them more financial flexibility to opt out.
Still, she said there appears to be more to the decision than that.“It’s not all explained by the husband’s income,” she said.
[387 words]
[Time 6 ]
The tendency for these highly educated moms to work part-time or not at all even extended to many who had also earned advanced business degrees. But the weak economy seems to have played a role in sending some of these moms back into the workforce.
Hersch found that just about 35 percent of the married moms with MBAs who went to the best universities were working full-time in 2003, but that had increased to 54 percent by 2010.
By contrast, about 66 percent of the moms with MBAs who attended the least selective universities were working full-time in 2003, but that fell to about 48 percent in 2010.
She said that implies that in a strong economy, married moms who graduated from the best universities can hold out for the job they want. And in a weak economy, they can likely beat out the women from less selective universities to land a job if they want it.
Other researchers also have found evidence that moms with MBAs who attended prestigious universities tend to be more likely to “opt out” than their peers who get other advanced degrees, such as medical doctors and lawyers.
Catherine Wolfram, an associate professor at the University of California’s Haas School of Business who has studied this issue, said one problem may be that women who earn MBAs tend to be most qualified to work in business and finance. Unlike other fields such as medicine, she said it could be that women in business and finance find that there is little flexibility for going part-time or making other family accommodations.
“The work environment really matters,” she said.
[278 words]
[Rest ]
Claudia Goldin, an economics professor at Harvard who also has studied these issues extensively, said it’s always been true that many women will slow their careers when they have children. But she questioned whether that should be considered a problem when women have long lives to pursue both professional and personal goals.
“There isn’t any change in opting out. Professional women, women who have advanced degrees - even women with BAs and nothing else - are having their kids a lot later,” she said. “So, seeing women slow down a bit in their 30s may have been a surprise to some, but it’s not a surprise to anyone on the ground.”
[121 words]
Source: Today
http://www.today.com/money/best-educated-moms-are-also-more-likely-opt-out-research-1C9321856
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发表于 2014-1-16 00:29:09
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