Lean In
Page 23
18. The five states that have short-term disability insurance programs that provide paid medical leave for birth mothers are California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. California and New Jersey also provide six weeks of paid leave that can be used by either the mother or the father. The state of Washington has passed a paid parental leave law but has been unable to implement it due to budgetary constraints. See National Partnership for Women & Families, Expecting Better: A State-by-State Analysis of Laws That Help New Parents (May 2012).
19. A survey of nearly one thousand fathers working in white-collar jobs for large companies found that about 75 percent of them took only one week off or less when their partners had a baby and 16 percent didn’t take any time off at all. See Brad Harrington, Fred Van Deusen, and Beth Humberd, The New Dad: Caring, Committed and Conflicted, Boston College, Center for Work & Family (2011): 14–15. A report on California’s new paid family leave policy found that fathers who made use of the policy took a median of three weeks off to care for and bond with their babies. See Eileen Applebaum and Ruth Milkman, Leaves That Pay: Employer and Worker Experiences with Paid Family Leave in California, Center for Economic and Policy Research (January 2011), 18.
20. Joan C. Williams and Heather Boushey, The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict: The Poor, The Professionals, and the Missing Middle, Center for American Progress and Center for WorkLife Law (January 2010), 54–55, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/three_faces_report.html.
21. Laurie A. Rudman and Kris Mescher, “Penalizing Men Who Request a Family Leave: Is Flexibility Stigma a Femininity Stigma?,” Journal of Social Issues, forthcoming.
22. Jennifer L. Berhdahl and Sue H. Moon, “Workplace Mistreatment of Middle-Class Workers Based on Sex, Parenthood, and Caregiving,” Journal of Social Issues, forthcoming; Adam B. Butler and Amie Skattebo, “What Is Acceptable for Women May Not Be for Men: The Effect of Family Conflicts with Work on Job-Performance Ratings,” Journal of Occupational and Organization Psychology 77, no. 4 (2004): 553–64; Julie Holliday Wayne and Bryanne L. Cordeiro, “Who Is a Good Organizational Citizen? Social Perception of Male and Female Employees Who Use Family Leave,” Sex Roles 49, nos. 5–6 (2003): 233–46; and Tammy D. Allen and Joyce E. A. Russell, “Parental Leave of Absence: Some Not So Family-Friendly Implications,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 29, no. 1 (1999): 166–91.
23. In 2011, fathers made up 3.4 percent of stay-at-home parents. See U.S. Census Bureau, “Table SHP-1 Parents and Children in Stay-at-Home Parent Family Groups: 1994 to Present,” America’s Families and Living Arrangements, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement (2011), http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ffg107mTTwAJ:www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hhfam/shp1.xls+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us. For a review of research about the social isolation of stay-at-home fathers, see Brad Harrington, Fred Van Deusen, and Iyar Mazar, The New Dad: Right at Home, Boston College, Center for Work & Family (2012), 6.
24. A study of 207 stay-at-home fathers found that about 45 percent of them reported receiving a negative comment or judgmental reaction from another adult. The source of the vast majority of these derogatory comments and reactions was stay-at-home mothers. See Aaron B. Rochlen, Ryan A. McKelley, and Tiffany A. Whittaker, “Stay-at-Home Fathers’ Reasons for Entering the Role and Stigma Experiences: A Preliminary Report,” Psychology of Men & Masculinity 11, no. 4 (2010): 282.
25. In 2010, wives earned more than their husbands in 29.2 percent of families in which both wives and husbands had earnings. See Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wives Who Earn More Than Their Husbands, 1987–2010, 1988–2011, Annual Social and Economic Supplements to the Current Population Survey, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r-eatNjOmLsJ:www.bls.gov/cps/wives_earn_more.xls+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us.
26. The Cambridge Women’s Pornography Cooperative, Porn for Women (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2007).
27. For a review see Scott Coltrane, “Research on Household Labor: Modeling and Measuring Social Embeddedness of Routine Family Work,” Journal of Marriage and Family 62, no. 4 (2000): 1208–33.
28. Lynn Price Cook, “ ‘Doing’ Gender in Context: Household Bargaining and Risk of Divorce in Germany and the United States,” American Journal of Sociology 112, no. 2 (2006): 442–72.
29. Scott Coltrane, Family Man: Fatherhood, Housework, and Gender Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
30. For a discussion of earnings and bargaining power in the household, see Frances Woolley, “Control Over Money in Marriage,” in Marriage and the Economy: Theory and Evidence from Advanced Industrial Societies, ed. Shoshana A. Grossbard-Shechtman and Jacob Mincer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 105–28; and Leora Friedberg and Anthony Webb, “Determinants and Consequences of Bargaining Power in Households,” NBER Working Paper 12367 (July 2006), http://www.nber.org/papers/w12367. For research on employment mitigating the financial consequences of divorce for women, see Matthew McKeever and Nicholas H. Wolfinger, “Reexamining the Economic Costs of Marital Disruption for Women,” Social Science Quarterly 82, no. 1 (2001): 202–17. For a discussion of women, longevity, and financial security, see Laura L. Carstensen, A Long Bright Future: An Action Plan for a Lifetime of Happiness, Health, and Financial Security (New York: Broadway Books, 2009).
31. Constance T. Gager and Scott T. Yabiku, “Who Has the Time? The Relationship Between Household Labor Time and Sexual Frequency,” Journal of Family Issues 31, no. 2 (2010): 135–63; Neil Chethik, Voice Male: What Husbands Really Think About Their Marriages, Their Wives, Sex, Housework, and Commitment (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006); and K. V. Rao and Alfred DeMaris, “Coital Frequency Among Married and Cohabitating Couples in the United States,” Journal of Biosocial Science 27, no. 2 (1995): 135–50.
32. Sanjiv Gupta, “The Consequences of Maternal Employment During Men’s Childhood for Their Adult Housework Performance,” Gender & Society 20, no. 1 (2006): 60–86.
33. Richard W. Johnson and Joshua M. Wiener, A Profile of Frail Older Americans and Their Caregivers, Occasional Paper Number 8, The Retirement Project, Urban Institute (February 2006), http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/311284_older_americans.pdf.
34. Gloria Steinem, “Gloria Steinem on Progress and Women’s Rights,” interview by Oprah Winfrey, Oprah’s Next Chapter, YouTube video, 3:52 minutes, April 16, 2012, published by Oprah Winfrey Network, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orrmWHnFjqI&feature=relmfu.
35. This survey of just over one thousand adults found that 80 percent of men in their forties said that “doing work which challenges me to use my skills and abilities” was very important to them. Among men in their twenties and thirties, the survey found that 82 percent of them said that “having a work schedule which allows me to spend time with my family” was very important to them. See Radcliffe Public Policy Center, Life’s Work: Generational Attitudes Toward Work and Life Integration (Cambridge, MA: Radcliffe Public Policy Center, 2000).
9. THE MYTH OF DOING IT ALL
1. Sharon Poczter, “For Women in the Workplace, It’s Time to Abandon ‘Have it All’ Rhetoric,” Forbes, June 25, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/06/25/for-women-in-the-workplace-its-time-to-abandon-have-it-all-rhetoric/.
2. U.S. Census Bureau, “Table FG1 Married Couple Family Groups, by Labor Force Status of Both Spouses, and Race and Hispanic Origin of the Reference Person,” America’s Families and Living Arrangements, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement (2011), http://www.census.gov/hhes/families/data/cps2011.html.
3. U.S. Census Bureau, “Table FG10 Family Groups,” America’s Families and Living Arrangements, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic
Supplement (2011), http://www.census.gov/hhes/families/data/cps2011.html. Calculation derived by focusing on all family groups with children under eighteen.
4. Tina Fey, Bossypants (New York: Little, Brown, 2011), 256.
5. Gloria Steinem, “Gloria Steinem on Progress and Women’s Rights,” interview by Oprah Winfrey, Oprah’s Next Chapter, YouTube video, 3:52 minutes, April 16, 2012, published by Oprah Winfrey Network, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orrmWHnFjqI&feature=relmfu.
6. Beth Saulnier, “Meet the Dean,” Weill Cornell Medicine Magazine, Spring 2012, 25.
7. Jennifer Stuart, “Work and Motherhood: Preliminary Report of a Psychoanalytic Study,” The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 76, no. 2 (2007): 482.
8. Nora Ephron, 1996 commencement address, Wellesley College, http://new.wellesley.edu/events/commencementarchives/1996commencement.
9. Robyn J. Ely and Deborah L. Rhode, “Women and Leadership: Defining the Challenges,” in Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, ed. Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2010), 377–410; Deborah L. Rhode and Joan C. Williams, “Legal Perspectives on Employment Discrimination,” in Sex Discrimination in the Workplace: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Faye J. Crosby, Margaret S. Stockdale, and S. Ann Ropp (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), 235–70; and Ann Crittenden, The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001).
10. Pamela Stone, Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Leslie A. Perlow, “Boundary Control: The Social Ordering of Work and Family Time in a High-Tech Corporation,” Administrative Science Quarterly 43, no. 2 (1998): 328–57; and Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1997). Joan Williams, a law professor and founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, refers to these penalties as “flexibility stigma.”
11. Jennifer Glass, “Blessing or Curse? Work-Family Policies and Mother’s Wage Growth over Time,” Work and Occupations 31, no. 3 (2004): 367–94; and Mindy Fried, Taking Time: Parental Leave Policy and Corporate Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998). Depending on the type of flexible work practice, women in nonprofessional jobs can pay steep penalties as well. For example, Webber and Williams (2008) examined two groups of mothers (professional and low-wage workers) and found that both groups experienced penalties for working part-time (less pay, demotions, etc.). See Gretchen Webber and Christine Williams, “Mothers in ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Part-Time Jobs: Different Problems, Same Result,” Gender & Society 22, no. 6 (2008): 752–77.
12. Nicholas Bloom et al., “Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment” (July 2012), http://www.stanford.edu/~nbloom/WFH.pdf. New research also suggests that work from home practices like telecommuting can have downsides such as increasing work hours and intensifying work demands made upon employees. See Mary C. Noonan and Jennifer L. Glass, “The Hard Truth About Telecommuting,” Monthly Labor Review 135, no. 6 (2012): 38–45.
13. New research suggests that working long hours reduces productivity. Harvard Business School professor Leslie A. Perlow found that by forcing consultants at the Boston Consulting Group to work less, they became more effective. To enable one scheduled night off per week, Perlow had the work teams engage in open and honest communication so they could divvy up work more efficiently. She also had the work teams devise plans and share information so that the consultants could cover for one another during their night off. As a result of these relatively small changes, the consultants felt better about both their work and their work-life balance. Consultants and their supervisors evaluated their work more highly. Fewer people quit. Team communication improved. And a larger share of consultants who took time away from work felt like they were delivering value to their client compared with the share of consultants who continued to work very long hours. See Leslie Perlow, Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012).
14. Colin Powell with Tony Koltz, It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 40.
15. Joan C. Williams and Heather Boushey, The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict: The Poor, The Professionals, and the Missing Middle, Center for American Progress and Center for WorkLife Law (January 2010), 7. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/three_faces_report.html.
16. Economic Policy Institute, “Chart: Annual Hours of Work, Married Men and Women, 25–54, with Children, 1979–2010, by Income Fifth,” The State of Working America, http://stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-income-table-2–17-annual-hours-work-married/. Assuming a fifty-week work year, middle-income married men and women with children worked 428 more hours in 2010 than in 1979, or an average of 8.6 more hours per week.
While some groups of Americans may have too much work to do, other groups, particularly low-wage, less-skilled workers do not have enough. Sociologists refer to this trend as the “growing dispersion” of work hours between more and less educated workers. For more on the dispersion of work hours, see Arne L. Kallenberg, Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s to 2000s (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011), 152–54; and Jerry A. Jacobs and Kathleen Gerson, The Time Divide: Work, Family, Gender Inequality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
17. Peter Kuhn and Fernando Lozano, “The Expanding Workweek? Understanding Trends in Long Work Hours Among U.S. Men, 1979–2006,” Journal of Labor Economics 26, no. 2 (2008): 311–43; Cynthia Fuchs Epstein and Arne L. Kalleberg, eds., Fighting for Time: Shifting Boundaries of Work and Social Life (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2004).
18. Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce, “Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek,” Harvard Business Review 84, no. 12 (2006): 51.
19. Sarah Perez, “80% of Americans Work ‘After Hours,’ Equaling an Extra Day of Work Per Week,” Techcrunch, July 2, 2012, http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/02/80-of-americans-work-after-hours-equaling-an-extra-day-of-work-per-week/.
20. Bronwyn Fryer, “Sleep Deficit: The Performance Killer,” Harvard Business Review 84, no. 10 (2006): 53–59, http://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer. For reviews on the cognitive impact of insufficient sleep, see Paula A. Alhola and Paivi Polo-Kantola, “Sleep Deprivation: Impact on Cognitive Performance,” Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 3, no. 5 (2007): 553–67; and Jeffrey S. Durmer and David F. Dinges, “Neurocognitive Consequences of Sleep Deprivation,” Seminars in Neurology 25, no. 1 (2005): 117–29.
21. Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, and Melissa A. Milkie, The Changing Rhythms of American Family Life (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006), 74–77. This study of the amount of time parents report taking care of their children finds that in 2000 both employed and nonemployed mothers spent, on average, almost 6.5 more hours per week on caregiving than their counterparts reported in 1975. Findings like these lead the authors to conclude, “It is as if a cultural shift occurred that propelled all mothers toward spending more time with their children” (p. 78). The increase in the amount of time parents spend with their children is largely explained by parents combining caregiving and leisure activities, which means that “either child care has become more oriented toward fun activities, or that parents are more frequently including children in their own leisure activities” (p. 85). This move away from adult-only leisure activities combined with an increase in multitasking while spending free time with children points to a willingness among parents to sacrifice personal time in order to spend more time with their children. A 2009
study found that in comparison to nonemployed mothers, full-time employed mothers spend less time per week in every leisure activity ranging from TV watching to community and socializing activities, resulting in ten less hours of leisure time per week. As opposed to mothers, there is little difference in the amount of leisure time between fathers with wives who work full-time versus fathers with wives who work less than full-time. See Melissa A. Milkie, Sara B. Raley, and Suzanne M. Bianchi, “Taking on the Second Shift: Time Allocations and Time Pressures of U.S. Parents with Preschoolers,” Social Forces 88, no. 2 (2009): 487–517.
22. Sharon Hays, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996).
23. The NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, ed., Child Care and Child Development: Results from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (New York: Guilford, 2005).
24. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Findings for Children up to Age 4½ Years, The NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, NIH Pub. No. 05–4318 (2006), 1, http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/upload/seccyd_06.pdf.
25. Ibid.; see also NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, “Child-Care Effect Sizes for the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development,” American Psychologist 61, no. 2 (2006): 99–116. In some cases, the U.S. study showed that children who spent longer hours in child care exhibited higher instances of behavioral problems such as temper tantrums or talking back. These problems arose less often in high-quality child care settings and largely subsided by the sixth grade. As Kathleen McCartney, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a principal investigator of the study, noted, “The child care hours effect is small by any standard. Any risks associated with more hours in child care need to be weighed against the benefits of maternal employment, including decreased maternal depression and more family income” (e-mail to author, February 26, 2012). For a discussion of these findings and issues, see Kathleen McCartney et al., “Testing a Series of Causal Propositions Relating Time in Child Care to Children’s Externalizing Behavior,” Development Psychology 46, no. 1 (2010): 1–17. For a meta-analysis of maternal employment and children’s achievement, see Wendy Goldberg et al., “Maternal Employment and Children’s Achievement in Context: A Meta-Analysis of Four Decades of Research,” Psychological Bulletin 134, no. 1 (2008): 77–108.