Balancing Work And Family: Study Shows Changing Roles Of Parents

Filed under: Features,Labor,Workforce Planning |

By KIM PARKER and WENDY WANG, Pew Research Center— The way parents spend their time has changed dramatically in the past half century. Dads do more housework and child care; moms have more paid work outside the home.

Neither has overtaken the other in their “traditional” realms, but their roles are converging, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of long-term data on time use.

Changing roles of parents: More moms work outside the home today than 50 years ago.

Changing roles of parents: More moms work outside the home today than 50 years ago.

At the same time, roughly equal shares of working mothers and fathers report in a new Pew Research Center survey feeling stressed about juggling work and family life: 56% of working moms and 50% of working dads say they find it very or somewhat difficult to balance these responsibilities.

Still, there are important gender role differences.

While a nearly equal share of mothers and fathers say they wish they could be at home raising their children rather than working, dads are much more likely than moms to say they want to work full time.

And when it comes to what they value most in a job, working fathers place more importance on having a high-paying job, while working mothers are more concerned with having a flexible schedule.

However, mothers’ attitudes toward work have changed considerably in recent years.

Among mothers with children under age 18, the share saying they would prefer to work full time has increased from 20% in 2007 to 32% in 2012.

working mothers feel the tug of family

Working mothers feel the tug of family and work.

Tough economic times may have ushered in a new mindset, as women in the most difficult financial circumstances are among the most likely to say working full time is the ideal situation for them.

At the same time, the public remains conflicted about what is best for children.

Among all adults, only 16% say the ideal situation for a young child is to have a mother who works full time.

A plurality of adults (42%) say mothers working part time is ideal, and one-third say it’s best for young children if their mothers do not work at all outside of the home.

These findings are based on a new Pew Research survey of 2,511 adults nationwide conducted Nov. 28 – Dec. 5, 2012, and an analysis of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS).

The ATUS, which began in 2003, is a nationally representative telephone survey that measures the amount of time people spend doing various activities throughout the day.

It is sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Data collected from 2003 through 2011 include interviews with more than 124,000 respondents. Comparable time diary data are available going back as far as 1965, allowing for an analysis of trends over a nearly 50-year period.2

Parents: Balancing Work And Family

The Pew Research survey finds that about half (53%) of all working parents with children under age 18 say it is difficult for them to balance the responsibilities of their job with the responsibilities of their family.

There is no significant gap in attitudes between mothers and fathers: 56% of mothers and 50% of fathers say juggling work and family life is difficult for them.

Feeling rushed is also a part of everyday life for today’s mothers and fathers.

 Parents struggle to balance work and family.

Parents struggle to balance work and family.

Among those with children under age 18, 40% of working mothers and 34% of working fathers say they always feel rushed.

With so many demands on their time, many parents wonder whether they are spending the right amount of time their children.

with Overall, 33% of parents with children under age 18 say they are not spending enough time with their children.

Fathers are much more likely than mothers to feel this way. Some 46% of fathers say they are not spending enough time with their children, compared with 23% of mothers.

Analysis of time use data shows that fathers devote significantly less time than mothers to child care (an average of seven hours per week for fathers, compared with 14 hours per week for mothers).

Among mothers, 68% say they spend the right amount of time with their children. Only half of fathers say the same. Relatively few mothers (8%) or fathers (3%) say they spend too much time with their children.

Parents And Time Use

A lot has changed for women and men in the 50 years since Betty Friedan wrote “The Feminine Mystique.”

Changing roles of parents: Dads handle more child care.

Changing roles of parents: Dads handle more child care.

Women have made major strides in education and employment, and the American workplace has been transformed.

But with these changes have come the added pressures of balancing work and family life, for mothers and fathers alike.

Trends in time use going back to 1965 clearly show how the increased participation of women in the workforce has affected the amount of time mothers devote to paid work.

In 2011, mothers spent, on average, 21 hours per week on paid work, up from eight hours in 1965. During the same period, the total amount of time mothers spend in non-paid work has gone down somewhat.

For their part, fathers now spend more time engaged in housework and childcare than they did half a century ago. And the amount of time they devote to paid work has decreased slightly over that period.

Fathers have by no means caught up to mothers in terms of time spent caring for children and doing household chores, but there has been some gender convergence in the way they divide their time between work and home.

Roughly 60% of two-parent households with children under age 18 have two working parents.

In those households, on average, fathers spend more time than mothers in paid work, while mothers spend more time on child care and household chores.

However, when their paid work is combined with the work they do at home, fathers and mothers are carrying an almost equal workload.

How Do Today’s Parents Rate Themselves?

In spite of challenges they face, today’s parents give themselves good grades overall for the job they are doing raising their children.

Among all parents with children under age 18, 24% say they have done an excellent job, and an additional 45% say they have done a very good job.

Some 24% say they have done a good job, and only 6% rate their job as parents as fair or poor.

Mothers give themselves somewhat higher ratings than do fathers: 73% of mothers say they are doing an excellent or very good job as a parent, compared with 64% of fathers.

Working mothers give themselves slightly higher ratings than non-working mothers for the job they are doing as parents.

Among mothers with children under age 18 who work full or part time, 78% say they are doing an excellent or very good job as parents. Among mothers who are not employed, 66% say the same.

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