Moms and Jobs: Trends in Mothers’ Employment and Which Mothers Stay Home
Source: Council on Contemporary Families

The employment of wives and mothers rose dramatically from 1960 to about 1990, and thereafter has leveled off. There was a small dip from 2000 to 2004, but employment rates had inched back to 2000 levels by 2006, the latest figures available. Contrary to recent press accounts, there has not been an “op-out” revolution. Rather than a strong downward trend, there has been a flattening out of the trend line, so that mothers’ employment has stabilized, with a majority employed. This strong upward thrust followed by a flattening of the trend holds for most groups of women.

Well educated women are especially likely to be employed, despite the fact that they generally have well educated, and thus high earning, husbands. Surprisingly, the percentage of married moms staying home doesn’t go up consistently as husbands’ earnings go up. In fact, it is women with the poorest husbands (in the bottom quarter of male earnings) who are most likely to stay home, followed by women with the very richest husbands (those in the top 5 percent of male earners).

Also available as PDF.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Business and economics, Children and families, Labor, Social and cultural issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.