Women and Work
When I was pregnant with my first, an older relative asked me when I was planning to stop working. Not if I was planning to stop working. But when. And when I told him I had no intention of stopping — in what may have been a snippy tone as I was put off by the question — he was surprised. We were coming from totally different places. Me, from one of working in a job I was really enjoying (I was at Smart Money at the time). Him from watching every other young woman he knew — even some with law degrees and MBAs — quit work as they entered motherhood. Times have changed. The new National Study of the Changing Workforce from the Work and Families Institute — an important piece of research conducted every five years — shows that Times Are Changing. Among the findings:
* For the first time, young women are just as likely as young men (both under age 29) to want jobs with greater responsibility.
* For the first time, young women with children are just as likely to want jobs with a lot of responsibility than young women without.
* Women in two-career couples are earning a greater share of the family income than ever before — it’s now 44 percent.
* And fathers are more engaged. They now spend 3 hours a day with children under age 13, on average, up from 2 hours a year ago.
I was heartened to see these results — and more. Maybe I should have been a millenial rather than a boomer/Xer (I was born in 64 so I’m right on the dividing line.) How about you? Have you seen evidence of this data in your own lives?
