Family dynamics changing for women
TEXT OF STORY
Renita Jablonski: The Families and Work Institute has surveyed Americans about how they juggle jobs and children for three decades. The group’s releasing its most recent findings this morning. With more, here’s Marketplace’s Caitlan Carroll.
Caitlan Carroll: The survey finds fewer of today’s parents are confined by traditional gender roles. Roughly a quarter of women in dual-income households make more than their spouses — an increase of 10 percent over the last decade. And they don’t see children as an obstacle to their careers.
Ellen Galinsky: Typically what you’ve seen, for as long as I’ve been looking at this research, is that when women have children things change. This is the first time we’ve seen that when women have children, things are not changing as much.
Ellen Galinsky is president of the Families and Work Institute. She says these days, men are taking on more parenting duties, and an increasing number are feeling stretched between work and family.
Take Matthew Fieldman. He’s a charity fundraiser in Cleveland. He and his wife both work full-time and divvy up caring for their daughter, Eliana.
Matthew Fieldman: A lot of the evenings are rushed. Rushing to pick Eliana up. Rushing to get home, rushing to change, to eat, and to get out the door for the next meeting.
Fieldman says eventually he or his wife will have to cut back on hours at work as Eliana gets older. But it’s still an open debate over which one it will be.
I’m Caitlan Carroll for Marketplace.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
