Why is it usually the woman who gives up work?

[Firedoll]

I'm on mat leave and have been asked 30+ times if I'll be going back to work and, when I say yes, if I'll be part time.

My DH has never once been asked about his working hours since our DS was born.

And if I say yes I am going back to work I get "oh, will your DS go to nursery/will you get a nanny?" The idea that my DH could look after DS for some of the time while I'm at work just doesn't even enters people's heads.

I don't blame people for asking because they're just making conversation. And it seems they are making a reasonable assumption as if one of the couple is going to give up work/reduce their hours, most of the time it will be the woman. In my experience at least.

But why is this? I see so often on here people saying that their OH couldn't go part time or is the higher earner. But all the latest reports suggest women in their twenties are now out earning men so that can't be true for the majority.

Is it just a cultural thing?

If you're inherently lazy and your dh isn't and you're both quite comfortable with that then there's no problem is there?
The post I wrote which you quoted referred to the women on this thread who admitted that they felt their husbands were being short changed but were quite happy to perpetuate that situation to get what they wanted. There was even one poster who said that if her dh had wanted to share parental leave she'd have told him where to go.

That's A sorry excuse of a partnership.

Ok then.. It's not that complicated in my world. I just didn't go back full time becasue I didn't really want to.. well that's what I thought.. But apparently it's a bit more complicated than that.

So I'll just go back to my badly paid, meanial job, my ironing and reading the daily mail.

The post I wrote which you quoted referred to the women on this thread who admitted that they felt their husbands were being short changed but were quite happy to perpetuate that situation to get what they wanted.

I think that was me. I do think that my husband has been short changed which is why I can't object to him retiring at 50. He has worked hard whilst I have spent the past few years doing lunch and cooing at babies. A sense of guilt at the fact that he was working hard whilst I wasn't drove me to set up a business so that I could perhaps bring in some money should he want to cut back on work as I have done. His son is about to finish university and therefore he has less of a commitment financially to his first marriage and he can give up his provider role if he wants to.

Newmummy- my DH will be the SAHP when I go back to work. I said up the thread we've had some bizarre comments.

I've no doubt my DH is perfectly capable of talking care of our little one. In fact I think he will be better than me in some ways as he's far more patient and I suffer from anxiety so would feel quite anxious being at home alone with a baby.

Stay at ho e or ho back full time. No one really cares and it's great for o have those options.

However, as some women take up to a year off with each child and often go back part time - they then cannot complain if men/ women who took shorter ML/women who went back FT/ childless women then get more chances at promotion, pay rises and more interesting projects.

I have always been under the impression that it has been worked out statistically that women tend to advance less in their careers than men regardless of whether or not they have children, regardless of whether or not they have ever taken extended maternity leave, and regardless of whether or not they have worked part time.

"However, as some women take up to a year off with each child and often go back part time - they then cannot complain if men/ women who took shorter ML/women who went back FT/ childless women then get more chances at promotion, pay rises and more interesting projects"

That's an excellent point Zeezeek that never crossed my mind.
You get so used to hearing about this being a gender discrepancy that you forget all the women that go back early, straight to full time or choose to not have kids take full advantage of their extra time with the employer.

i have always been under the impression that it has been worked out statistically that women tend to advance less in their careers than men regardless of whether or not they have children, regardless of whether or not they have ever taken extended maternity leave, and regardless of whether or not they have worked part time.

This is a wrong impression. European Labour Market studies indeed by the European Commission and gathering long and short term quantitative and qualitative data have repeatedly shown the impact of traditional gender roles at home, child rearing and the role of partners' attitudes towards gender roles - on women's participation in the workforce, their career progression and pay levels.

Would you like strawberry ice cream or chocolate ice cream?

Would you like strawberry ice cream or shit ice cream?

Would you like shit ice cream or vomit ice cream?

Just because something is on the outside is a choice, doesn't mean the choices available are good ones. It must be fab if your choice is happily staying at home financially supported by a lovely dh or to go back to a fantastic, fulfilling career where you are wanted and valued. I don't know many women that haven't had to make a trade off of some description whatever decision they have made.

roundabout it does seem to be the case that women generally progress less and are paid less whether they have dc or not but I don't think people want to acknowledge it because it's easier to say it's down to individual women deciding to sah or go part time than it is to look at the way women are systematically discriminated against in the workplace, regardless of the choices they make.

at the European Parliament on glass ceilings on women's careers

[[http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/comparative-information/gender-and-career-development Gender and career development report including Glass Ceiling effect from Eurofound]]

[[http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/17542411211252651 impact of motherhood on career progression]]

konyaa I'm too tired to read lots of academic research but from the conclusion from link 2:

Such findings are supported by other cross-national research into gender and career development, which find that women experience problems with credibility, blocked occupational mobility, discrimination and fixed stereotypes. Such stereotypes embrace the beliefs that successful managers have male attributes; that women do not have the commitment or motivation to manage others; that married women or mothers are unsuitable for jobs requiring foreign travel and long hours; that men are more emotionally stable than women and are intellectually superior; and that other employees, particularly men, will not want to work for a woman. Perhaps these findings are not necessarily surprising. Research into career management, regardless of gender, suggests that levels of expertise at company level may be particularly poor: few senior managers are firmly committed to career management activities; few companies train their line managers to support the career development of their staff; and in practice, most energy in terms of career management is devoted to a relatively small group of very senior employees. Arising from such findings, the principal problem here appears to be ensuring that legislation actually gets translated into practice at company level.

And lets not forget that there are more men called John who are CEOs of FTSE 100 companies than there are women with any name.

www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/06/johns-davids-and-ians-outnumber-female-chief-executives-in-ftse-100

However you look at it, that can't just be because some women chose to take a year off here or there, or go part time.

Yes there is a very wide array of factors.

At the root of all of which is perceptions and practices surrounding gender and gender roles. One key element of which this thread is discussing. It has repeatedly been reduced to individual choice by Sheila or Thomas in Essex or Liverpool. It is not. It is not. It sits within and against a range of social, cultural, economic factors rooted in patriarchy. It manifests itself in domestic contexts, in parenting, in social conversations, in conjugal relationships, in supervisor-supervisee rapports, management development meetings. It is everywhere.

We cannot look at the question of women leaving the labour market as an individual choice that simply happens to add up over time and space - meh. To do so is incredibly myopic.

I live in Sweden and find this issue fascinating ! I also consider myself VERY lucky.
We don't really question whether or when women , in particular, will return to work because they always do. I don't know any sahp post parental leave.

So In answer to the question OP this is why I believe it is cultural and societal and not more natural or maternal for the mother .

I think I'm very maternal and generally ;) a good parent but also enjoy working and I feel I am valued for my contribution to society - for both of those things. Why should you have to choose? I don't feel forced either and I don't feel like I'm palming my children off at substandard childcare .

However that's because it IS a societal norm here.

I remember when I lived in the u.k an ex assumed if we had children I would give up work /go part time. I did point out I earned higher than him but that wasn't the issue - he wouldn't have taken a pay cut/ less work and help with more childcare - it wasn't socially acceptable for him.

The u.k has a long way to go with attitudes to the roles of men in the home/childcare but also the value of women in the workplace .

Konyaa, completely agree.

I look at my own situation where traditional gender roles are reversed (I work FT, DH is SAHD) . . . I know I had a good education, parents who helped me question gender roles and this all helped me make this choice. But then I get annoyed about it, wish I could be at home more even though I really like my job & I think some of that is down to me thinking about what is expected over what I really want.

But for me the biggest challenge has been coping with others' attitudes about what my husband is doing. So many ask questions about what he's going to do based on the assumption that surely he must want out of the parenting role, that he must return to work. It pisses me right off

At the root of all of which is perceptions and practices surrounding gender and gender roles. One key element of which this thread is discussing. It has repeatedly been reduced to individual choice by Sheila or Thomas in Essex or Liverpool. It is not. It is not. It sits within and against a range of social, cultural, economic factors rooted in patriarchy. It manifests itself in domestic contexts, in parenting, in social conversations, in conjugal relationships, in supervisor-supervisee rapports, management development meetings. It is everywhere.

We cannot look at the question of women leaving the labour market as an individual choice that simply happens to add up over time and space - meh. To do so is incredibly myopic

Indeed. And honestly, I can't imagine how anyone could disagree with this. No choice is made in a vacuum, and this one least of all.

I agree but I think people would rather go over the usual outrage over sahm v wohm and who is best/worst. Personally, I think society needs educated, resourceful, creative people to have dc and I think more should be done to facilitate families in doing so. Whether that's properly funded shared parental leave, more help with childcare costs, financial incentives for companies to offer job share or part time senior roles I don't know, but there are options if organisations are willing to change the status quo.

Excellent post Konyaa- spot on.

Nobody here has said if SAHM/WOHM is best or worst.

Some people have argued that its purely an individual "choice", that this is how things should indeed be, and some have even brought out the "why have children" card.

I cannot speak for others, but my point has steadily been (1) it is far beyond an individual choice (2) choices, like all practices in society, have histories and contexts and do not stand as islands simply adding up by coincidental numbers (3) the issue of more women than men leaving the labour market/featuring far less in numbers in senior positions/in STEM subjects/earning less - is embedded in patriarchy, which extends from domestic partnerships to boardroom conversations - and needs to be spoken about and addressed at all levels. This means policy changes, this means paying attention to what conversations we have around our children, and paying attention to public discourse and intervening as necessary - including on anon online forums.

Night.

As a matter of interest, do male and female job choices in Sweden still have a tendency to be a bit divided along gender lines, or are there lots of female engineers and university professors and lots of male primary school teachers, nursery nurses, nurses and cleaners?

Interestingly, there is still a gender pay gap between men and women in Sweden. You can see the effect more equality in parental rights to leave has and that the gap doesn't widen as much over the years as it does in the UK, but the gap is still there.

So, why do so many Swedish women go into lower paid careers?...

More than twice as many Swedish women than men live in poverty in old age and the biggest gender pay gap in Sweden is in the finance and insurance industries. Two thirds of the administrative and clerical workforce in Sweden are women. Swedish women are more likely to work part time than men. Not exactly equal, then.

Scandinavian societies have more egalitarian models of sharing childcare and parenting than the UK.

The UK has more egalitarian models of sharing childcare and parenting than the USA

The USA has more egalitarian models of hating childcare and parenting than India

Male-female equality in all areas of life are still skewed towards men in all these countries above because we still haven't overcome the massive systematic biases and gender roles we work against.

However the degree to which they are skewed is lesser or more depending on how far they have got with equality being entrenched into policy.

It's a scale.

I direct a 14 country research network with a grant from the UK . My co-director is a Scandinavian academic, female, couple years older than me. We both had a baby each over the course of this project. For me to return to work at 6 months my husband took shared parental leave at pittance pay and multiple jibes from his family. For her - her husbands leave was written into policy - at a very comfortable level of pay and for very many months and completely jibe-free as it was socially the done thing. We had very different experiences of that first year of parenting - as mothers and as academics.

Those things don't change overnight, the use it or lose it parental leave was only introduced 20 years ago. So of course this would not affect those older women living in poverty.