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?

In our family it was my DH who gave up work when we could afford it. One of the reasons we could afford it was my DH's constant encouragement and practical support while I built up my tiny business.

I've always enjoyed my work. His was boring and worse paid.

I'm about to have DC3, DP is taking all of my maternity leave bar 4 weeks or so whilst I recover from my CS. His employer offer's the same enhanced package as me so he will receive full pay. I'm really happy for him that he will get to do this when it's been me twice.

When he returns to work DC3 will be 9 months old and will join DC2 at the CM full time. Neither of our jobs lends itself well to part time hours and tbh being home all day with two very young children would not be good for my mental health.

It's cultural. Most women I know working full time are foreigners. It's very rare for british women to work full time.

Gosh that's not my experience at all.

Most of the foreign women I know (although it does depend on the country/culture) were raised to never work outside of the home - but simply to run the household, take care of the kids and take care of their husbands.

My DH earns about seven times what I would earn, without his earnings we would not be able to afford to have the DC.

In my case I was delighted to give up work! I love being a sahm, work was rubbish and I earned far far less than dp. Also I have the boobs which the children were rather attached to.

If I had been the higher earner dp would have been ecstatic to give up work and I would have gone back for the sake of the family. The dc would have just had to have formula.

I was earning less than dh, he was older than me and had a more senior role so that was not unexpected. I was keen to have my second child soon after my first (I was 30+), we also wanted to move out of London (bigger house and more access to family), these multiple factors lead to me not returning to work straight away. Then as my job was a city based public sector job I would have struggled with going back to work for the long hours and long commute required. I chose not to return. My older children have both got Autism diagnoses which further complicates child care and further delayed a return. I cannot really blame sexism alone for any of these complications and people assumptions are a distraction but not really relevant. I am constantly asked when I will be returning to work and people think I must spend my days bored out of my brain watching Jeremy Kyle, that is annoying and untrue. I wanted to be the primary carer and it has benefited the family. DH is now in a position to work from home more and I am planning my return into paid work - I have volunteered for years to keep my skills up.

People say all sorts of stupid stuff - if they stopped talking maybe they would start thinking, but your anecdotes (or mine) are not evidence. Sexism is shit but it works against women in every role either their supposed 'place' in the home or at work. So if more women want to stay at home than men do that should not be a problem it should be supported, if women feel pressured to return to work by public disapproval that is just as shit as being expected to stay at home. Options need to be supported and empathy, understanding that what works works for one family will not work for another. Women are over represented in single parent families, there the expectations are that they will work and use child care. The father seems to escape scrutiny in both scenarios - so I agree that the care of children should be seen as a joint responsibility/ role.

This is where things don't add up for me. I realise MN is a small sample by how come so many women have DPs who are higher earner? If women are out earning men in their twenties? And the average age of having a first child is around 30?

Have I misunderstood something? Perhaps do women tend to have children with someone who earns more than them even if they are themselves a higher earner?

Because child rearing and domestic drudgery are the very last and strongest bastions of sexism and misogyny in our society. In a nutshell.

The point that women more frequently have older partners who out-earn them is interesting. All other things being equal, if those younger women stayed in their jobs, they would eventually earn the same amount as those older partners. Therefore a decision to give up work on the basis only that the older male partner earns more at that time starts to look a little bit short-sighted.

Of course there are other reasons why the decision is made for the woman to stay at home or to cut down her hours. There is nothing wrong with making the decision that works best for you. But I just question the logic of basing it primarily on current earnings rather than on future earning potential.

I think pinkyredrose hit the nail on the head. It's so ingrained that people don't question it. I'm a stay at home parent as it was best for us in our circumstances. DH and I would have happily swapped, and still would, but it's not been viable for us.

It's like when it comes up in conversation that I'm a feminist and people say, "But you're a stay at home mum!" As if the two can't possibly be compatible. Annoying but ultimately I hope that attitudes will start to change soon

DP is older than I am, and I also pissed away my 20s getting a PhD, then moved into another field, so he brings in nearly 3 times as much as I do. I'd love it if he were part time and I were full time, but we couldn't afford it. One of the reasons I don't want another is because I found maternity leave so hard (colic, serious illness, PND, no family help) - but even if he shared parental leave, we can't live off my wage and statutory parental pay, but we can live off his wage and stat mat pay.

I think, though I am not sure, that around 80% of British households have a male breadwinner.

However, I earn more than my DH and always have, other than a short period about 4 years ago when I had a bit of a break and took a low-paid job for a few months.

So yes, it tends to be the man who continues to work while the woman stays at home or works part-time because it's easier to lose the woman's earnings or cut them down. And it's easier for women to get flexible or part-time working arrangements as well, I think men are less likely to as for them or be granted them, although in a decade I am sure that will be different.

As for Because child rearing and domestic drudgery are the very last and strongest bastions of sexism and misogyny in our society I think this is also true. How many daughters have to look after elderly parents while the sons do very little.

women tend to have children with people older than them - but I would need to look at the stats. In my family one of my brothers is an artist and his wife a high earner, so he was primary carer and she worked. He was able to work on his art from home as well but has only recently started earning significant sums - if he had had to be the main wage provider he would never have been able to continue as an artist so it has benefited both their careers. Whereas in my case dh is older and we were both public sector. He went into the civil service and I was local govt. Local gov is poorer paid and has faced death by a thousand cuts over the years (particularly my sector) so I was never going to out earn him. There are many different scenarios and it is impossible to know without getting some stats. Women will go back to work after a period at home and maybe more time should be spent on making that easier. If I was a man looking at the struggles women have returning to work after a break looking after children then I would very sensibly think 'fuck that for a game of soldiers' and aim to stay in work!

We shared paternity leave. Both self employed. Both now work 4 days with wonderful nanny who works 2 days a week. DP works some evenings and weekends to free up his day so we can accommodate this.

We get the same comments.

Can only speak anecdotally but all my best friends significantly out earn their partners. None have taken shared parental leave. Not discussed in depth but few comments they have were they wanted to have a year with baby, their DP wasn't as hands on, one did arrange shared parental then lots of reasons from her DH why couldn't at last minute.

On a more positive note I know 4 couples I met via baby classes who's DPs are now doing shared leave and the DPs meet up with the babies every week and have their own support network now. My friend at work has his last tomorrow before he takes his shared parental leave. It is happening, just not the norm yet.

If you and your DH had chosen to share the parental leave 50-50 then perhaps he would have been asked OP.

I went part time when I went back to work. In our case it was because in my job (teacher) it is easier to get part time hours and to eventually go back to full time (should I ever want to!) than it would be for DH in his job. I know several couples who are both teachers who have both gone to 80% hours to share childcare.

DP and I have spoken about this, we plan starting to TTC next spring.

I am the highest earner, we will utilise the Shared Parental Leave scheme and i will take 6 months maternity, DP the remaining, the we hope to both drop to 80% contracts to cover childcare easier. All the grand plans etc, hopefully it works out like that, i love working!

Sorry, I meant to say I agree about the annoying questions which are only ever directed at women!

Also if the value you have in society was no longer based on pounds and pence that would help. If we want to encourage men to be primary carers or joint carers then we should raise the status of caring for a family and actually recognise the value of doing that. Make jobs more flexible and open to term time working/ part time and job share. I don't ascribe to particularly capitalist values so making money (unfortunately) has never been important enough. I give as much value to my Citizens advice voluntary role as I did my paid job (in that I work hard and take pride in providing a service). Unfortunately I feel I am out of sync with society and feel that people consider me a stepford wife with her nice little voluntary job and sneer - I don't feel supported and valued in society (though I do feel valued in my particular CAB and my family).

BitOutOfPractice summarised it perfectly!

It's societal. I think shared parental leave is a great start to levelling the playing field because, until that arrived, it HAD to be the mother who was at home for 9-12 months leave, and in that time the domestic roles become entrenched and the woman can lose ground at work.

Women out-earn men in their twenties but fall back in their thirties and a big part of the reason is because they stop work or cut back on their careers due to child rearing. Hopefully if more men have their careers set back due to taking parental leave then the pay imbalance will start to level out.

I think this will all take a generation or two to work through. Women have to be AWARE of societal pressures and fight them right from the beginning if they want equality of responsibility for childcare and domestic duties in their relationship. I will make sure my daughters know about the choices they need to make rather than just blindly following the routes that society expects.

Besides the fact that he earned tons more than I did and has been promoted 3 times since with big wage increases, my work place didn't have those opportunities. Also because I wanted to take time off then go part time and he didn't.

I stayed at home (for less than 6 months) because my job is more secure/protected than my dh 's job. My dh is self employed, if he took a year off he'd probably never get back into the industry. He also earns more than me.

Lots of reasons for me personally. We wanted to do SPL but in his company while there was generous maternity pay, SPL was paid at the statutory rate so it would have been a big cut in earnings. Then he was made redundant when I was pregnant anyway and after the birth worked as a contractor not employee so not entitled to it. When I went back to work, his new job would have been happy for him to work PT but the cut in salary even to 4 1/2 days a week was equal to my salary for a full 3 days work so it didn't make sense financially. He works in a far better paid industry than me and is more established (older and started employment younger as I did a PhD). I did initially go back full time but hated it. In the future I would like to work full time but not with a very young family.

WorraLiberty that might well be because of I work in software. The foreigners are developers and testers from China and India. It's a selected group of degree educated and above average earners. I would agree if you pick a group of other ethnic group, it will definitely not be true. But out of this field, most british female developers choose to change to part time after children.

I would say largely cultural/socially conditioned, because having higher-earning, older partners is also a result of social conditions.

Men are paid more than women because of 1) old-fashioned patriarchal pressure, whereby some men earn more that their female colleagues for the same job and 2) indirect patriarchal pressure, whereby women are selected or self-select away from high-earning jobs.

Women often have older partners for socially conditioned reasons too: we're still experiencing the remnants of the old idea that women like to be subordinate and junior in relationships, and men like to be dominant and senior. It conditions what we find attractive at quite a deep level - not necessarily a conscious or voluntary one.

So, the scales are already stacked in favour of women giving up working, even before you take breastfeeding and recovery from birth into account.

Since there is relatively little recognition of pregnancy and birth as actually difficult or important, there's not enough support for women even if they want to return to work.

And then you have the pressure on women to see childcare and housekeeping as their responsibility. On the whole, men (especially middle-class men) do less housework than women, so women are already doing that bit more work if they are juggling children, a home, and a job.