Why U.S. Women Are Leaving Jobs Behind

[gracepoole]

While the downturn and the weak economy of recent years have eliminated many of the jobs women held, a lack of family-friendly policies also appears to have contributed to the lower rate. In a New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of nonworking adults aged 25 to 54 in the United States, conducted last month, 61 percent of women said family responsibilities were a reason they weren’t working, compared with 37 percent of men. Of women who identify as homemakers and have not looked for a job in the last year, nearly three-quarters said they would consider going back if a job offered flexible hours or allowed them to work from home.

nytimes.com/2014/12/14/upshot/us-employment-women-not-working.html?WT.mc_id=2015-Q1-KEYWEE-AUD_DEV-0101-0331&WT.mc_ev=click&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1420088400&bicmet=1451624400&ad-keywords=KEYWEEAD&kwp_0=7289&kwp_1=119255&kwp_4=54304&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

This article is from December but I find it fascinating. I (thankfully) work in an industry that’s far more flexible than most. But I’ve often envied women who were able to remain home after giving birth. I’m already dreading the return to teaching next fall after #3 arrives.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Is the article implying that one reason for not working is better/worse than another? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment for men improved in the last year from 6.8% to 5.8% or a 14.7% improvement. Unemployment for women in the last year improved from 6.5% to 5.3% or an 18.5% improvement. Wouldn’t that indicate that by whatever measure they are using, women are being hired at a faster rate than men?

 

[Beautiful]

Slice and dice it any way you want.
Motherhood is a full time job best experienced at home and not 8+ hours in the workplace.
Do the math.
Subtract 24 hours from
10-12 hours spent on sleep, personal care of self and others
10 -12 hours spent getting ready for work, commuting and working
equals 0-4 hours to parent children 5 days of a week.

There are no job benefits to compensate having a mother away from her home and children.

Maybe U.S. women are finally seeing the light.

 

[Beautiful]

Slice and dice it any way you want.
Motherhood is a full time job best experienced at home and not 8+ hours in the workplace.
Do the math.
Subtract the following from 24 hours
10-12 hours spent on sleep, personal care of self and others
10 -12 hours spent getting ready for work, commuting and working
equals 0-4 hours to parent children 5 days of a week.

There are no job benefits to compensate having a mother away from her home and children.

Maybe U.S. women are finally seeing the light.

What I meant was
Subtract the following from 24 hours
Lack of sleep goes hand in hand with mothering/grandmothering. This leads to less brain power.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Slice and dice it any way you want.
Motherhood is a full time job best experienced at home and not 8+ hours in the workplace.
Do the math.
Subtract 24 hours from
10-12 hours spent on sleep, personal care of self and others
10 -12 hours spent getting ready for work, commuting and working
equals 0-4 hours to parent children 5 days of a week.

There are no job benefits to compensate having a mother away from her home and children.

Maybe U.S. women are finally seeing the light.

Definitely worth giving up a lot of “necessities.”

 

[zz912]

Another consequence of a poor economy that has dragged on for years is that employers are much less willing to hire those who need flexibility to the job when they have a full pool of workers who are begging for jobs.

Of course the more mothers who can stay home with their children, the more society benefits.

 

[edwest2]

It appears some women value their roles as wife and mother more. Sure, we all need our rest, but trusted babysitters or even relatives are possible alternatives to be able to get out sometimes, or help in other ways.

I hope women see their God-given role more clearly, as well as men. And yes, I do believe in fairness, but some groups in the 1970s tried to turn some things in a new, and not better direction.

An interesting look at the most common jobs for women today and back when I was growing up.

money.cnn.com/2013/01/31/news/economy/secretary-women-jobs/

Ed

 

[Jeanne_S]

I was always fortunate to be able to stay home with my three daughters. Now that they are married with children of their own,they all work outside the home,although two of them have careers that afford them much flexibility in the number of hours and days they work. Not nine to five mon through Friday jobs.
As an aside,I have a former neighbor who is a neuro radiologist.While she continues to work some,she did tell me once that all she really ever wanted to do was stay home with her daughters but felt she owed it to herself to work after all the effort she put into her education.
I believe herein lies the issue for a lot of women,believing they can have and do it all.

 

[gracepoole]

Unfortunately, society does little to value the home and anyone (male or female) who maintains it. I’ve no problem with families in which women work outside the home – for some families, it works for everyone in the unit. But as noted in this article, the feminist movement stalled after making strides for women in the workplace. And at least part of this is owed to the lack of genuine value our communities place on mothers parenting their children. It would be nice to think that all women have a genuine option when it comes to staying home full-time or working part or full-time. But most American women work outside of the home at some level because they must. The truly sad thing is that staying at home and not bringing in any income (even through direct sales and the like) is a pipe dream for many except those who are at a higher economic level. While some choose to work, many others must.

It would be fabulous if instead of quibbling about breastfeeding breaks on the job and other inane issues, Americans began to truly value women for the unique gifts (including mothering) they bring to our communities. Anyone who’s had a baby knows that 12 weeks is minimal – and for most, those 12 weeks aren’t paid leave (mine sure aren’t and I work in what most would consider a “progressive” career). A colleague of mine once likened childcare with dog care and insisted they should be given equal priority in terms of flexibility (i.e. none). It’s attitudes like this that ultimately help to perpetuate the daycare culture. Either we view mothering as truly beneficial for communities as a whole or we throw a good number of women to the wolves.

 

[Cat]

I worked outside our home (hospital lab) part-time (20 hours a week) with my first daughter. Right before my second daughter was born, I quit my job, and stayed home with both girls until they were in school.

We were so poor and so in debt. But it was worth it.

I think one of the hardest things when a woman works outside the home is maintaining breast-feeding.

Yes, many companies bend over backward to provide lactation stations for women to pump–but it’s hard. While everyone else gets to take a break and chit-chat or drink coffee, the breastfeeding mom has to go to a dark quiet place and pump. It gets wearisome after awhile, and many women quit breastfeeding much earlier than they planned.

Also, for whatever reason, many breastfed babies of working mothers don’t sleep well at night, and mom is so tired, so she’s willing to listen to all those people who say, “Start giving Baby more solids” or “Start giving Baby a bottle of formula–it will fill Baby up and they’ll sleep sounder.”

Both of these actions means Baby eats less breast milk, and this diminishes mom’s supply, and it all just goes downhill and breastfeeding ends much earlier than mom intended.

Anyway, I think that’s the hardest part for working mothers, along with the lack of sleep. I don’t see how they do it. I didn’t have the energy to work and take care of two little girls.

 

[powerofk]

Another hugely important reason is the cost of child care. In many cases, the cost of child care is so much that it actually is almost as much, if not more, than the second income in the family. Due to this, it often makes financial sense for the mother (or father in some cases) to stay home with young children.

 

[gracepoole]

I worked outside our home (hospital lab) part-time (20 hours a week) with my first daughter. Right before my second daughter was born, I quit my job, and stayed home with both girls until they were in school.

We were so poor and so in debt. But it was worth it.

I think one of the hardest things when a woman works outside the home is maintaining breast-feeding.

Yes, many companies bend over backward to provide lactation stations for women to pump–but it’s hard. While everyone else gets to take a break and chit-chat or drink coffee, the breastfeeding mom has to go to a dark quiet place and pump. It gets wearisome after awhile, and many women quit breastfeeding much earlier than they planned.

Also, for whatever reason, many breastfed babies of working mothers don’t sleep well at night, and mom is so tired, so she’s willing to listen to all those people who say, “Start giving Baby more solids” or “Start giving Baby a bottle of formula–it will fill Baby up and they’ll sleep sounder.”

Both of these actions means Baby eats less breast milk, and this diminishes mom’s supply, and it all just goes downhill and breastfeeding ends much earlier than mom intended.

Anyway, I think that’s the hardest part for working mothers, along with the lack of sleep. I don’t see how they do it. I didn’t have the energy to work and take care of two little girls.

I so agree. I am fortunate to have a private office in which I can pump. But many wind up pumping in bathrooms (yuck) or in other unfortunate, isolated locations. I hate pumping. It’s completely removed from the mother-child bond that I love so much. I’ll do it again in the fall, no doubt, but we sure could make it easier on the women who are strong enough to make it a priority. Especially since breastfed babies benefit the entire community.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Is the article implying that one reason for not working is better/worse than another? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment for men improved in the last year from 6.8% to 5.8% or a 14.7% improvement. Unemployment for women in the last year improved from 6.5% to 5.3% or an 18.5% improvement. Wouldn’t that indicate that by whatever measure they are using, women are being hired at a faster rate than men?

No it does not, unemployed women who drop out of the workforce to raise kids after spending a year trying to find a job drop the unemployment rate. It is possible that women are being hired slower than men and the reason the U-3 is dropping is due to women dropping out of the workforce to raise kids.

 

[MarcoPolo]

No it does not, unemployed women who drop out of the workforce to raise kids after spending a year trying to find a job drop the unemployment rate. It is possible that women are being hired slower than men and the reason the U-3 is dropping is due to women dropping out of the workforce to raise kids.

So what is the rate of women dropping out of the workforce vs men dropping out of the workforce? That would be more telling right?

 

[qui_est_ce]

Another hugely important reason is the cost of child care. In many cases, the cost of child care is so much that it actually is almost as much, if not more, than the second income in the family. Due to this, it often makes financial sense for the mother (or father in some cases) to stay home with young children.

If the working mother deserves a living wage, so does the child care worker.

 

[weller2]

Is the article implying that one reason for not working is better/worse than another? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment for men improved in the last year from 6.8% to 5.8% or a 14.7% improvement. Unemployment for women in the last year improved from 6.5% to 5.3% or an 18.5% improvement. Wouldn’t that indicate that by whatever measure they are using, women are being hired at a faster rate than men?

Nope. Stay-at-home moms are not looking for jobs, so they do not count as unemployed. So if women quit workforce to become stay-at-home moms, then women unemployment drops.

 

[SWolf]

Another hugely important reason is the cost of child care. In many cases, the cost of child care is so much that it actually is almost as much, if not more, than the second income in the family. Due to this, it often makes financial sense for the mother (or father in some cases) to stay home with young children.

I know a few people in that boat. The ideal would be for the mother to be able to work 10-20 hours, and mothers could swap kids to babysit based on schedules. If a mom was full-time stay at home, she would take her friend’s kids and get decent compensation. That’s what my mother did, and it worked out wonderfully for all families involved. Everyone would win. Now many states want licenses to do day care, making these untenable now.

This too is the core of the push for free Pre-K, Head Start, Full Day Kindergarten, etc. Even though studies have shown conclusively that children aren’t any better off, parents see it as free day care.

 

[gracepoole]

This too is the core of the push for free Pre-K, Head Start, Full Day Kindergarten, etc. Even though studies have shown conclusively that children aren’t any better off, parents see it as free day care.

:ehh:

First, preschool and full-day kindergarten are not the same. They serve different purposes. Second, sustained benefits of preschool are debated but certainly haven’t been conclusively disproved. Third, I know plenty of committed stay-at-home-by-choice moms who send their children to preschool – they hardly see it as daycare.

 

[RGCheek]

A friend of mine had a long conversation with his wife about whether she might take an online job that paid about $20 an hour. She said no, that she wouldn’t work for so little an hour, and that she would rather just stay home with the kids instead.

Then he pulled out his lap top and showed her the costs of having day care, a second car, fuel, and deducted from the average earned an hour all the sick time used as she was a contractor and had no sick leave or vacation.

Final average was less than $15 an hour after all expenses.

She quit her daytime commuting job to do the online job instead, then later reduced it to part time as she enjoyed spending time with the kids so much. By organizing her work in spare moments, she was able to increase her hourly average earned and still spend a huge amount of time with her kids.

As we discussed it, we also both agreed that the amount we make each year seems to be largely irrelevant if we don’t curtail our expenses. It was my families experience and his as well that people tend to expand their bills to close tot he value of their monthly paycheck. So learning to reduce ones expenses can give a family even more EXCESS income than taking a second job or fighting for that raise or doing over time. And it is the excess income that people are really needing, along with the flexibility of handling emergencies comfortably with ‘rainy day’ funds.

My wife and I kept both our full time careers though we did reduce our expenses as much as possible, which came in handy when I slipped my disk and went on disability.

 

[SWolf]

:ehh:

First, preschool and full-day kindergarten are not the same. They serve different purposes. Second, sustained benefits of preschool are debated but certainly haven’t been conclusively disproved. Third, I know plenty of committed stay-at-home-by-choice moms who send their children to preschool – they hardly see it as daycare.

Working parents I talk to admit to seeing Preschool as day care. Guess it depends on your company.

My point was full-day Kindergarten has no advantages over part-time Kindergarten.

Parents are more than welcome to do what they want, but I have never seen a study showing preschool and Head Start make any cognitive advantages that go past third grade.