Combining Career and Family

In describing their future family life, however, both sexes tend to follow

traditional gender roles. When asked whose job comes first, most say the

husband’s does. Both sexes are unanimous in declaring that primary care

of children is the wife’s job. Although young women hope their husband

will share household chores equally, most young men express only willing-

ness to ‘help’ – a word that implies, not taking their share of the responsi-

bility, but assisting with tasks that are really the wife’s responsibility.

Although both sexes anticipate having careers, males and females

hold different attitudes toward work. Male students see their future in

terms of a steady line of work and achievement. Most have clear ideas

about where they want to go and how to get there. They expect to work

for the rest of their lives and to be the main providers for their fami-

lies, even if their wife works. By comparison, women seem tentative and

vague about their career goals. They want to work, but see their career

plans as depending on the needs of their husband and children. They

expect their careers to be interrupted or even halted at various times.

In short, neither sex anticipates a symmetrical marriage in which

husband and wife assume equal responsibility for supporting the family

and raising the children. If compromises need to be made, both sexes

assume that the wife will sacrifice her career for the family (and the hus-

band his family life for his career). Given the fact that women usually

earn less than men and that the workplace is not structured to accom-

modate family commitments, these expectations may be realistic.

The American workplace is not designed for people who want to make

equal commitments to their family and their job. The law does not guar-

antee American women maternity leave, and very few companies offer

men paternity leave though one of the first bills that President Bill Clinton

signed into law required large companies to offer their workers unpaid

leave for births, adoptions, and family emergencies. Although more than

half the mothers of small children work, few employers provide any form

of child-care assistance (such as on-site day care or allowances for baby-

sitters). The federal government’s support for day care has been minimal.

Because caring for children is still seen as women’s work, the burden of

trying to balance work and parenthood falls on women. Our culture still ex-

pects men to be part-time parents, just filling in for Mom now and then.

There are alternatives. In Sweden, where nine out of ten women ages

twenty-five to thirty-four work, the government provides public day care

for all children. Parents of either sex who choose to stay home with a

newborn or newly adopted baby are guaranteed eighteen months’ leave,

receive social security payments corresponding to their current salary,

and must be given their old jobs back when their leave ends. The govern-

ment also requires employers to allow parents time off to care for a sick

child and the option of part-time work while children are preschoolers.

Either parent may take advantage of these programs, or mothers and fa-

thers may take turns. Of all the industrial nations, only the United States

and South Africa do not provide new parents with some form of support.

But the structure of the workplace does not tell the full story; cultural

forces also come into play. Even in Sweden, few men take advantage of

paternity leave, and those who do often are ridiculed by their co-work-

ers. As a result, most women today hold two full-time jobs, one at the

workplace and one at home.

The sociologist Arlie Hochschild characterizes the state of gender

relations in America today as a ‘stalled revolution.’ The work force has

changed, women have changed, but most workplaces and many men

have not changed in response.

The most visible sign of the stalled revolution is the phenomenon that

has come to be known as women’s “second shift.” Growing numbers of

women work an eight-hour shift at their jobs and then put in another full

shift at home, cooking, cleaning, and caring for children. From her own

research and other time-use studies, Hochschild calculates that work-

ing women do fifteen more hours of work a week than their husbands

do. This adds up to an extra month of twenty-four-hour days each year.

Even when husbands are willing to put in as much time on child care

and housework, women feel more responsible for the functioning of the

family and the home. Women are the ones who keep track of doctor

appointments, arrange for children’s visits with friends, and call from

work to check on the baby-sitter. Women do more of the daily jobs, like

cooking and cleaning up, that lock them into fixed routines. Men take

care of the car, the yard, and household repairs – nonroutine chores that

are less frequent and often can be done whenever time permits. Most of

the time men spend working at home is devoted to the children, not the

laundry. Moreover, men are more likely to do ‘fun’ things with the child-

ren (such as trips to the zoo), while women more often perform such

routine child-care tasks as feeding and bathing. Just as there is a wage

gap in the workplace, so there is a ‘leisure gap’ at home. Husbands sleep

longer and have more time to watch TV or pursue hobbies. Wives talk

about sleep ‘the way a hungry person talks about food’

Hochschild suggests that women give in to their husbands on the

“second-shift” issue because they are locked into marriage in a way that

men are not. For one thing, women earn less than men and so have more

of an economic need for marriage. For another, marriage is less stable

than it used to be, and divorce is more economically damaging to women

than to men. To make matters worse, many divorced mothers receive little

emotional or other support from traditionally minded friends and relatives.

Hochschild sees the ‘stalled revolution’ as the result of colliding so-

cial forces. On the one hand, new economic opportunities and needs

have drawn women into the work force, which puts pressure on men to

share the second shift. On the other hand, the wage gap between men

and women and the high rate of divorce lead women to hold on to their

marriages—and men to hold out on sharing housework. Hochschild sug-

gests that many modern women feel doubly oppressed by men, not only

on the first shift (where the boss is male, privileged, and better paid than

they are) but also on the second shift (where husbands opt out).

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