Kathie Lingle's Work-Life Blog

Rekindling the Mommy Wars

Aug. 1, 2007 - On July 12, 2007, the Pew Research Center issued a report entitled From 1997 to 2007: Fewer Mothers Prefer Full-time Work, by Paul Taylor, Cary Funk and April Clark. The gist is that 60% of the 259 working mother respondents said they would prefer working part-time (an increase from 48% a decade ago) and almost half (48%) of the 153 non-employed moms who took part in the study said they would prefer to stay home (an increase from 39% a decade ago). Interestingly, more fathers were included in the study than either sub-group of mothers (343 of them, to be precise), but no change scores are cited for their attitudes toward work, so the reader is left to assume that men weren’t included in the 1997 study that is used as the basis for comparison. Notwithstanding their inclusion, the headline is all about mothers, probably because 72% of fathers say the ideal situation for them is a full-time job. Still, that leaves 16% of men who say they’d prefer to stay at home and 12% of them preferring part-time work.

The study is flawed, which has been pointed out by others in the flurry of media coverage that has ensued over the past two weeks. To paraphrase Roz Barnett , a researcher whose expertise I greatly respect, the sample size is small, the margin of error was high, the questions poorly worded, including the fact that “part-time” was not defined. That leaves us pondering the real point of this exercise, since it seems less than useful to ask people to imagine what their ideal work scenario would be when the reality is that only a quarter of mothers (24%) work less than full-time today and that number hasn’t changed in the same decade that frames this study. Most people can’t afford the double whammy of a substantial cut in pay and the lack of benefits coverage that comes with most part-time work in this country.
 
I suspect that the line of questioning about “what’s best for society and children” and “how’s your parenting going?” takes us closer to the core intent of this report. The reader is left with the impression that working (especially, but not exclusively, full-time) is somehow bad for the mothers who do it, and that it is also harmful to society in general and to kids in particular. In case we’re not convinced, the authors augment this discussion by importing data from another of their studies that purports to represent “the views of the full adult population…that tilts more negative than positive about the phenomenon of mothers working outside the home.” By this juxtaposition, the report would apparently like us to accept a striking similarity between the opinions of all mothers (working and non-working) and the opinions of all other adults in our society on this subject.

Once again, broader-based facts from at least a decade of other, more robust research studies about parenting, working and the perceptions of children don’t unilaterally support the premise raised in this one imperfect study.  From Ellen Galinsky’s 1999 book Ask the Children:  What America’s Children Really Think About Working Parents  to the National Study of the Changing Workforce, with lots of empirical stops in-between, the story line is much more complex, interesting, richer and generally more positive than depicted here.

Notice how consistently, as we’ve seen with the non-existent “opt-out revolt,” almost any story about women being less dedicated to work or more willing to drop out (than men?  than a year or a decade ago?) makes news by generating a media frenzy, regardless of the facts.  We’ll talk more about this deep-seated cultural bias about the “proper” role of women in another issue. 

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of WorldatWork and its affiliate, Alliance for Work-Life Progress (AWLP).