Want your daughter to earn more money when she grows up? A new study from the Harvard Business School reveals a link between working mothers and the earning potential of their daughters.
The study of 50,000 adults in 25 developed countries found that women who grew up with working mothers earn more than their peers who had stay-at-home mothers, and are also more likely to have supervisory roles at work.
What do the sons of working mothers get out of it? According to the study, men raised by working mothers will spend twice as much time caring for their children as the sons of stay-at-home mothers.
The breakdown: In the U.S., women raised by working mothers earned 23 percent more than those whose mothers had not worked outside the home. More than 33 percent held supervisory positions, compared with roughly 25 percent of the daughters of stay-at-home moms.
Men raised by working mothers spent an average of 16 hours on child care, compared with the 8.5 hours spent by their counterparts.
The study’s authors pointed out that their work was by no means meant to denigrate stay-at-home mothers and emphasized that they don’t necessarily believe all women should work. Instead, they suggested that the more options children see, the more options will seem possible in their own lives.
One interesting result of the study was how the numbers varied by country. According to an analysis by the New York Times, “The effect (of having a working mother) was strongest in countries in which there was a bigger divide in opinions about the role of women, such as the United States and Israel, and in countries where gender attitudes were more conservative, such as Russia and Mexico. It was smallest in countries where there was widespread acceptance of working women, such as the Nordic countries.”
This makes sense because it’s best to be a working mother in a Nordic country; returning to work is not quite the fraught decision it can be in the U.S., so more women choose to work in general.
Sweden grants mothers up to 15 months of family leave at full pay; Denmark offers 12 1/2 months, and Norway provides nine months of paid family leave. It’s no surprise, then, that these countries boast the highest number of working mothers.
In fact, the United States is the only developed country in the world that still doesn’t offer guaranteed paid maternity or paternity leave to workers. It’s considered a benefit provided by employers, but according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics National Compensation Survey, only 12 percent of workers reported having such coverage in 2013.
My mother was a teacher, but she stopped working for seven years after my sister and I were born. Then, with both of us in elementary school, she went back to teaching for 30 years. In a sense, we got the best of both worlds, but choosing whether to work isn’t something many mothers have the luxury of deciding. And the guilt heaped on mothers for leaving their children in the care of others doesn’t exactly help.
I worked part time until my son was 5 and my daughter was 3, and then my position as an editor and part-time teacher at a university got cut at the same time my husband’s business was struggling, and I had to scramble to find full-time work for financial reasons.
Looking back, it was actually easier not having a choice. I would’ve felt too guilty returning to work full time with a 3-year-old if we hadn’t needed the money, and it ended up being one of the best things that ever happened to me. After months of searching and applying for numerous awful jobs, I got the opportunity to leave my former life in academia and try my hand at journalism as a staff writer for a business magazine.
I loved it! But I still felt terribly guilty.
I can remember my daughter, Lux, clutching my legs as I dropped her off at an all-day preschool – The Rainbow Room (how much happier could that sound?) – crying for me not to leave. I was forced to hand her over to Nan, the kindly older teacher who assured me Lux was always fine the moment I left. It was probably true, but it didn’t make me feel much better.
Then there was the week of endless teacher conferences when the kids were out early and I decided to just bring my 5-year-old son to the office and hide him away in a corner, as if it were no big deal. It wasn’t really much of an issue, until he decided to keep peeking around the door of my boss’s office during a meeting. I was called aside and asked – “Are you having child care problems?”– not in the nicest tone of voice.
The resounding answer was “Yes! Of course I am!” But that’s not what I told my boss. Instead I mumbled something about the conferences and that it wouldn’t happen again. I think I ended up taking a few sick days to finish out that week.
Then there were the days when one of my kids was home sick and I was unable to work from home and had to take a sick day myself. Or the events I had to miss.
It’s easier now. My kids are older, so waiting for half an hour at the school isn’t a huge deal. They can also stay home alone with a cold if need be. Also, I’m in a job that allows for much more flexibility than some of my previous positions, and it’s one of the best things that ever happened to me as a working mother.
But many women in the U.S. are not as fortunate. It would be nice to read a study like this one, about the positive effects of working mothers, while also being assured that child care won’t cost more than you are able to earn at a job.
Contact the writer: hskyler@ocregister.com@heatherskyler
