College-educated parents and white parents were significantly more likely than other parents to say work-family balance is hard. But the phone survey with a parent from each of 1,807 households with children under 18 found 56 percent call juggling careers and home life “difficult”. Moms, however, are twice as likely as dads to say they handle more of these tasks. Even in dual-breadwinner homes, women assert that more domestic responsibilities fell to them.
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“The truth is probably somewhere in the middle”, Horowitz said.
In two-parent families, parenting and household responsibilities are shared more equally when both the mother and the father work full time than when the father is employed full time and the mother is employed part time or not employed, the Pew report says. When it comes to managing the youngsters’ schedules, 54 percent of such parents say Mom does more. For their part, most dads see a more even division of household chores: 64% say they and their partner share this about equally. Yet other studies seem to suggest that no, in fact, moms are right. She was not involved in the Pew survey. According to Pew, more than half of dads in working couples earn higher salaries than moms.
Working moms overall are slightly more likely than fathers to say it’s hard to balance work and family (60 versus 52 percent). When both parents work full time, the woman is the top earner 22 percent of the time. Twenty-six percent said the two parents earn about the same amount. It’s so understood that “successful” men should put work first that one study found a few men pretending to work 80-hour weeks just to get ahead – while sneaking out for family obligations. Another 30 percent said parenthood has made career advancement tougher, while 10 percent credit parenthood with helping career advancement.
The number of families with two working parents has increased by 15 percent since 1970, while the number of families with just a dad working has dwindled by 20 percent, a new poll indicates. The same disparity holds true for working dads.
It’s also possible that mothers believe that fathers do less because dads do it differently, as Anne Marie Slaughter pointed out recently. “So sharing at home helps end women’s second-class status at work and men’s second-class status at home”. Not so fast, say most of the dads.
The survey found something of a stress gap by race and education. Family life is changing, and so, too, is the role mothers and fathers play at work and at home. “We also know that parents with kids at home value flexibility in a job and paid leave”.
Pew asked whether being a parent is enjoyable, rewarding, tiring and/or stressful. They were less likely to describe parenting as enjoyable or rewarding. More than three-quarters of mothers and half of fathers in the United States said they had passed up work opportunities, switched jobs or quit to tend to their kids.
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“We know that half of all full-time working dads say they have too little time with their kids”, she told the Washington Post.
