Could this be one reason women are more likely to work part time and earn less than men?

Question

What about fathers spending more time actually fathering?

"Women still do the majority of the household chores, despite their increased participation in the labour market.

Women spend nearly 3 hours a day on average on housework (excluding shopping and childcare). This compares with the one hour 40 minutes spent by men. Women also spend more time than men looking after children. Men, on the other hand, work or study for an average of nearly 2 hours a day more than women (4 hours 20 minutes a day compared with 2 hours 30 minutes for women)."

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=288

How about men working less outside the home, taking care of the kiddies AT home, cooking & cleaning while the woman is given more opportunity to "study" (whatever that means) & developing their own career?

Answer 1

When you talk about the time doing house work, do you include mowing the lawn, fixing the leaking sink or toilet, taking care of car repairs and other things that men do most often?  (I know some women do these things too but for the most part, men do them most often)  

Objective, scientifically credible studies have shown that American women are not working more or harder than men. For example, the U.N.'s survey on the United States showed that American men work three more hours a week on average than American women. The Journal of Economic Literature reports that the average man works five hours more, and a study  released last year by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, the world's largest academic survey and research organization, put the disparity at three more male hours per week.

In addition, these surveys (both the serious ones and the feminist advocacy ones) count only hours worked. A man doing eight hours of dangerous construction work in the 100-degree heat is credited with no more "work" than a woman who works in an air-conditioned office or who, in the comfort and safety of her own home (and without a supervisor breathing down her neck), cooks breakfast, takes the kids to school, packs her husband's lunch and folds the laundry while chatting on the phone.  

The Council on Contemporary Families issued a report on men and housework. CNN’s headline to the story was typical of most media-- "Report: Men still not pulling weight on chores.”

In reality, studies which account for the total amount of work that husbands and wives contribute to their households--including housework, child care, and employment--confirm that men contribute at least as much to their families as women do. What the CCF study actually said was that the amount of child care fathers provide has tripled over the past four decades, and the amount of housework men do has doubled. Moreover, men have accomplished this in an era where the average workweek has significantly expanded. The papers reporting the story barely noticed.

Answer 2

women now earn more than men.

Answer 3

I'm always wondering why so many people try to compare between women and men.We're different, that's the nature, we're equal, that's the society. So I think it's nothing wrong for men to go outside and earn more money, and make his family enjoy the life.

Answer 4

I think it's likely. Anecdotally (too late at night to be looking for sources, sorry!) I know several two income families where the wife's job is either part time, job share or 'creatively time managed' to ensure the needs of the kids are met, while dad continues to pull a straight nine to five.

Sometimes, but not always, it's about the money, mostly it's because the couple have had to choose who gets 'kid duty' and it's almost always mum.

Obviously this is a choice these couples make and it's their own business, but still, that is the choice they make ...

Cheers :-)

Answer 5

You should not expect so much from them so soon.  They have much to cope with emotionally and adapt to as they come to grips with the loss of their male entitlement paradigm and acculturations.  MUCH is better if in just two generations men are actually helping out around the house an hour and forty minutes every day.

Answer 6

Well, something must have gone horribly wrong somewhere, because in 'The Feminine Mystique' Betty Friedan told us that women could do their housework in an hour or so, so they had plenty of time to have a high-powered career (she disdained the idea of anyone having a simple job), and still do all the housework without bothering their husbands.  Something must have gone wrong somehwere. Why does housework take so much longer nowadays than it did in the sixties?

The truth is that, when it comes to housework, when both partners are working, it tends to be the one who cares most who does th emost, and in the majority of cases it seems that is the woman.  if women are doing three hours of housework a day, then they are doing 2 hours a day more than Betty Friedan thought they needed to, so they need to lighten up and do less.  Rather than expecting men to do more (which itseems, in most cases, is not going to happen) they need to lower their own standards of perfection.

As for expecting men to stay at home with the children while women get on with their exciting careers, well there may be some men who are willing to do that, but a lot are not.  You cannot change human nature.  Women nowadays all seem to be obsessed with careers, I don't know why.  They'd rather be stuck in an office all day than home with their children.  Well, if that's what they want, they're probably, in most cases, going to have to pay someone else to look after the children, rather than expecting the men to do it, because on the whole the men don't want to.

Answer 7

I wouldn't rely upon "averages" like this for a sociological perspective. Different circumstances and different families can't really be averaged. There are families in which females are the main breadwinner or the other way around. There are families with higher incomes which can afford domestic help and there are those who can't. There are combinations. How can all that be averaged to say that women spend a certain number of more hours on housework?

Nevertheless, it doesn't take an academic set of statistics to point out the obvious. Most men will look at a toilet and say "yeah, that looks clean" and a woman will come along and say "are you kidding? hand me the bleach". LOL

Maybe the next generation of men, having been raised by time poor women, will have a better understanding of when a toilet is not clean.

Answer 8

I was stuck in that position for some time. I worked 2 jobs- grocery store and evenings and weekends at the auto auction my husband managed-, TECHNICALLY 3 (I was in the Army Reserve at the time), plus had all the childcare and housekeeping duties, in addition to cooking, while husband went to work from 9-4 and came home claiming exhaustion. (he managed a lot crew at an auto auction.)

He felt this entitled him to have each night to himself with his brother and friends at the bar or a friends party, and weekends too. When he watched the kids, they were asleep.

So, after he lost his job I went active duty, and guess who wasn't thrilled to have the roles reversed?

I can't tell you how many calls I got at work.. "I'm bored." "I need an adult to talk to." "Why won't she eat fruit? What is it with this kid??" "Your son is drawing on the walls. What should I do about this?" Well, darling, you should probably not let him have markers. He reverted to "Wait til your mother gets home." I had to laugh.

Now that I'm deployed he's forced to take care of everything... the bane of all Army spouses.

Believe me when I tell you that I've earned my respect as a person back- I'm not just wife-mommy. I'm a person.

: )

Answer 9

I know some men are doing their share of the household chores or more and take care of their kids-but I've met many a professional woman who still is expected by their spouse to be the one primarily responsible for their child or children. Even if the spouses talk about who will do what-somehow the female spouse ends up taking up the slack whenever something needs to be done for the children. This is justified by the husband because he usually makes more money than his spouse. It's interesting how fatherhood falls by the wayside and the money and career becomes more important when childcare issues come up.

Now if fatherhood was as important to these men-women could be working as hard as their spouses on both work and on their family. When it comes down to it-many men still value their careers over fatherhood. It's changing-but it's too bad for the children who are being short-changed a parent. If more men actually took care of their kids with their spouse-it would make sense why more men would be awarded shared or full custody in the case of a divorce as well.

Answer 10

I do know of one instance of this: A woman who was very interested in her law career had to give it up because her husband wouldn't take an equal share in the duties at home, for whatever reason (I can't remember).

Answer 11

I just wanted to say, that while a divorced wife is foregoing overtime, and taking the kids to ballet lessons, while her non-custodial ex husband is working overtime, and paying no child support (because it can't be based on overtime) the man is also getting more pulled out of his paycheck for retirement and Social Security, making him a richer man when he retires.  

That's one of the reasons why men don't want the kids in a divorce...They want the money, and the freedom to commit to their job, get overtime and pay raises, while the woman must forego overtime and take a less time-consuming job, that generally pays less.  

Just an observation.

Answer 12

Yes, you are right to demand an equal share of household duties. There is nothing wrong with men cooking, washing, ironing, and cleaning.  If they do not know how to do, it is time them to learn it. And if the wife is outearning her husband, it may well be a perspective for him to stay at home, doing the housework and raising the kids.

There are so many women out there who have been very successful with education and studies, leaving their men far behind. They deserve a man who lovingly supports his wife´s career.

I was often thinking about that solution, but my salary is much higher than my wife´s pay - so this is not a realistic perspective. -  I am doing my 50% of the household duties, never arguing. What has to be done, will be done, no matter who has just got the time for it. - When I´ll retire from work a few years from now and my wife will still have to work for some time, ´I´ll completely take over the housechores, being her male housewife. We are both looking forward to it.