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Working Moms
mlee116
member
The new stay-at-home mom surge: It's not who you think--Thoughts??
mlee116
member
in Working Moms
The new stay-at-home mom surge: It's not who you think
More moms are staying at home with their kids full time, and those moms tend to be younger, less educated and more likely to be poor than women who work outside the home, new research finds.
That picture of stay-at-home motherhood may be at odds with a stereotype many Americans have of wealthier, more educatedmothers who choose to stay home with their children because they can afford not to work.
While that’s still true of some moms, researchers also argue that many women who stay at home are doing so at least partly because they can’t afford the child care costs and other expenses associated with going to work, especially if they can’t get a job that pays well.
D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer at Pew Research Center and one of the authors of the new report, said women who stay home with their children are likely doing so for a slew of reasons, including economic ones.
"Even women who say they're staying home by choice may tell you they're home because the workplace didn't offer them many other options," she said.
The new analysis of stay-at-home moms with children under age 18, released Tuesday by Pew Research Center, found that 29 percent of moms with kids under age 18 were stay-at-home moms in 2012, up from 23 percent in 1999.
The study, which was based on a detailed analysis of government data through 2012, appears to show that economic pressures may be one factor behind that increase. Since 2000, Cohn said there has been an increase in the share of moms who said they are at home with their kids because they can’t find a job.
The researchers also found that Hispanic, Asian and immigrant mothers are more likely than their peers to stay home full-time with children.
For many women, Cohn said there are probably a number of reasons — including economic factors, personal preferences and cultural norms — that go into the decision to stay home.
Allicyn Willix, 29, has been a stay-at-home mom since her daughter Parker, now 2, was born. She has relished the time with her kids, but she’s also looking forward to her son, Conner, starting kindergarten next fall. That’s because it will mean she only has to pay child care expenses for one child – and can afford to go back to work.
“I really want to be able to get out there and provide financially (because ) we struggle at times,” she said. “But it’s rewarding, too, to be able to stay at home.”
In general, the Pew report showed, the least-educated mothers are most likely to be at home. About 21 percent of college-educated moms are stay-at-home moms, compared with 35 percent of high schoolgraduates and 51 percent of moms with less than a high school diploma.
The share of college-educated moms who don't work outside the home has not risen substantially since 2000.
Cohn said Pew’s research also found that only a fraction of stay-at-home moms appear to be “opting out” of high pressure careers. The researchers found that women with at least a master’s degree and a family income of more than $75,000 made up just 5 percent of married stay-at-home moms with working husbands.
“Certainly these elite stay-at-home mothers have gotten a lot of attention, but they’re only a small slice of all stay-at-home moms,” Cohn said.
Allison Linn is a reporter at CNBC. Follow her on Twitter @allisondlinn or send her an e-mail.
2014 CBNC
https://www.today.com/money/more-mothers-staying-home-kids-study-shows-2D79497794
Anybody else read this article? What do you think?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: The new stay-at-home mom surge: It's not who you think--Thoughts??
i tend to agree with @courtandnate. i know a number of people who were out of work, but refused to get jobs because unemployment kept getting extended so they figured it wasnt worth it. these are educated people i am talking about. we reward those who dont work and punish those who are successful...its disgusting and sad that our country has become this.
on to the article....i agree with some of it. For example...daycare costs me 2k a month. A nanny would have cost me 4k. I know some people dont think like this, but quite frankly...if i didnt make enough money to pay for childcare AND pocket a decent amount there after, I would not work-I would stay home with my children. The money matters to me... if it werent for the money, I would prefer to stay home with my children (i do prefer to stay home with my children, but right now I make too much to walk away from, so I am working to pay for their college and pay off our mortgage). Now, if my DH didnt have health insurance and I worked solely to provide that, different story of course. I can see the argument of staying home bc the cost of childcare does not make it worth working...
We say that because we both work FT, have college and post college degrees and can just scrap enough together for us, our one LO and our dog!
But then we always look at each case individually and realize that there is usually more at play.
For example one family owns a duplex and their tenants pay most of their mortgage. Another we know gets lots of help from the in laws - financial and general help.
Therefore nobody we know is able to have one parent stay at home without some type of accommodation being made.
That said I think it's really frustrating that we both have to work so hard, at good jobs just to make ends meet. I always feel like it should be easier than this, not just for us but for all the educated, hard working, honest parents out there.
This article absolutely makes sense to me. Most of the women I know who are SAHMs do so because they can't find decent jobs that would pay enough to cover daycare and take home enough to make it worthwhile. Most of the "richer" families I know are dual income as well.
I make a substantial income, but if I didn't I probably wouldn't work. My career is extremely fulfilling to me, but part of it has to do with my salary, benefits, retirement plan and other perks I get that will benefit my family forever.
I can only think of four friends who SAH. Two fit the profiles of the "new" SAHMs in this article- they did not make enough $ at their jobs to afford child care. Both were not happy with their jobs prior to having babies either. The other two have spouces who make A LOT of money. However, they both do a little contract work here and there in their fields as they wish to return to work when their kids are older.
Agree with this thought. DH and I didn't start a family until we were 35. At that point, we had traveled the world, completed various degrees, bought a house and paid off all our debt. I definitely think this has something to do with us having it easy now. In my 20s, I was NOT this stable at all.
ITA w/ @aglenn (sorry - I cannot quote for some reason).
Now that we are expecting baby #2, we spent some time shopping DC and the costs are completely ridiculous for the average person to justify working. In home DC's are much more reasonable, but the ratios allowed by the state, IMO, are really out of whack. I was not comfortable going that route because of that. And once you have more than one child, it becomes really difficult to justify working from a cost of care perspective even if you make a reasonably decent living. For example, the DC near my office is $1,625 for one child. They only offer a 10% discount for the second child.
DS is in a private school, so I know a fair number of families with one SAH parent in which the working spouse makes more than enough money and therefore they chose to have one parent SAH, but I understand that is not the norm in our society. In a lot of families, it simply does not make sense from a cost persepctive to have the lower-earning spouse working.
I get annoyed that they speak of being a SAHM as if it's a permanent state of being, and that there are only two extremes-SAHM or FT working mom. But I know many women who've SAH for a while and gone back (whether it's back to a career or just a job is another post-there have been some in both categories, but that's beside the point here) and I have educated mom friends who are probably technically counted as 'working moms' but in reality mostly SAH while teaching piano lessons at a studio, have an adjunct professor teaching gig one night a week, or doing one 12 hour nursing shift on a weekend night.
I guess my point is that while I don't doubt that high childcare costs push less educated moms out of the workforce, I have a hard time drawing any other conclusions from this. Moms in the workforce is such a wide spectrum and there are so many different situations. I'd be interested to see more detailed data on the # of hours moms with kids of different ages work, and whether or not they're in jobs that are career-oriented.
There is a social cost to the minimum wage.
I actually know more SAHDs than moms, but those that did stay home did it because their salary barely covered childcare costs.
My salary basically means we don't have to worry about money. We can take the trips, do fun activities and not have to worry about where the money is coming from. We are also able to save plenty for our retirement, education and for the larger splurges like trips. Our mortgage is our only debt. Personally, I grew up having to live frugally and scrape by, and one of the reasons I got my degree in finance and work in finance and technology is so my family didn't have to live that way.
except that is not was was said at all. You really suck at comprehension.
This is exactly how I feel. I have a cousin who is a SAHM and I just don't know how they do it on just her DH's salary. I mean DH and I work hard, have college degrees, have good jobs and I feel like we are just scraping by. We NEVER go out to dinner, or buy anything. I can't remember the last time I bought myself an article of clothing. We do one vacation a year and it's usually at the inlaws timeshare so we don't even pay to stay there.
My cousin on the other hand goes on vacation like twice a year. They went on a cruise last year and to Florida. They do peapod groceries which is like $10 just for delivery. I shlep my butt to the grocery store to save the 10 bucks. But I don't think they have to pay student loans like we do.
It just goes to show that one persons expectations of money can be so different from another's. I am not working so we can have nicer cars or a bigger house, I'm working so we can have A car and A house.
But I'm sure someone might say they don't even have those...so the bitching continues.
Anyway, I'm dreaming of the day that we have more breathing room with our finances and for us the only way we can hope to ever get there is if we both continue to work so we are both moving forward with our careers.
Also yes, student loans suck my lifeblood, I often dream of what life would be like without them!