Travails of Working Wives

Working married women have it tough either way regarding home duties and child care.

A new study finds that women whose husbands work a lot, especially overtime, tend to expect their better halves to be better than half and expected them to pick up the loose ends at home and do it all. His commitment to work could hurt your career, the research suggests.

“As long work hours introduce conflict between work and family into many dual-earner families, couples often resolve conflict in ways that prioritize husbands' careers,” Cha said.

Cornell University doctoral candidate Youngjoo Cha published her findings in the April edition of American Sociological Review after studying U.S. Census Bureau data on 8,484 white-collar workers and 17,648 blue-collar workers from families in which both spouses work.

A woman is 42 percent more likely to quit if her husband works 60 hours or more a week, and the likelihood is 51 percent higher among professional women. Among professional women who had children, the odds bound to 112 percent.

“This effect is magnified among workers in professional and managerial occupations, where the norm of overwork and the culture of intensive parenting tend to be strongest. The findings suggest that the prevalence of overwork may lead many dual-earner couples to return to a separate spheres arrangement -- breadwinning men and homemaking women.”

But the husbands are fickle, and having a wife who worked that much didn't enhance their chances of quitting, and being a parent didn’t change this fact.

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Source-Medindia
TRI