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?

So for those worried about childcare (and I agree the thread has taken an unpleasant turn and tone) why not have both parents reduce their hours, as has been suggested umpteen times? Both keep their job and pension, both look after their children. And it seems that until both sexes start claiming their right to ask for this, and exercising their right to challenge a refusal by their employer, the general trend will not change.

This should not be about whether children should be in childcare, or whether all women or all men should be SAHPs. It should be about why in opportunities, education and employment we do not have a level playing field. It should be about why people assume men will do one thing and women will do another, and whether and how we should aim to move to a society that assumes families will take the decisions that suit them best. Men should never feel it isn't an option to add for part-time work/shared leave/career breaks. Ideally, neither parent should feel they have no choice but to be sole earner/full time carer.

YY OOAOML

Exactly that.

A thousand times one OOAOML said.

And it comes back to women starting to share parental leave - even if it isn't quite as financially beneficial short term as taking all the leave herself- because in the long term it sure as hell will make a difference to the balance in the relationship and in how each partner views their career if both parents have been hands on involved in the early months. Some things are more important than money and the chance for the dad to spend some time as sole carer during that first year is invaluable. And if more men are taking the leave, the push for it to be better remunerated will likely happen in time. These things don't happen overnight, it's a process but if you don't use the legislation that's now there, things will never change.

Honestly i can't say it enough- us 50 years plus mothers who had minimal maternity leave, husbands who had one day off for the birth of their child and no right to share parental leave would give our eye teeth for the opportunities available now. Don't wait for the system to be perfect- grab the chance with both hands now

I agree with 00, I think an ideal balance is for both parents to work PT.

I also agree that sharing the Mat leave will make a massive difference to how childcare & responsibilities for the home are shared in the years ahead. I hope this makes a difference to how things like house work are shared too. I am shocked at how many of my friends (these are women in their 30s), who've grown up with feminism etc, do almost all the house work or at least take responsibility for all the house work.

Because if the woman works they'll actually be doing 2 full time jobs as it's mostly women who handle all the child/house needs (whether working or not). When men work they generally do not devote as much time or energy to needs of the children etc. In this way they generally have more focus at work, and women generally have more focus on the domestic side. It's not being sexist - just generally what happens. This is why in most jobs, men get paid more or climb the ladder more, and women are better at organising domestic affairs. That's not to say men/women can't swap roles and be equally great at them - it's just what comes the most natural to most people and what motivates them more. Women have a great maternal instinct in general and this is the driving force.

I think when you've got the majority of women on this thread saying their dh outearns them many times over it's unlikely as a family they can afford/ be willing to drop the family income dramatically by the man being part time or taking 6 months off on smp. We couldn't pay our mortgage if I was main earner for example. If wages were more equal prior to dc then it would be more of a possibility for more families.

In this way they generally have more focus at work, and women generally have more focus on the domestic side - because often during maternity leave the woman will of course also do more around the house. And it's difficult to hand the jobs and responsibilities back when you return to work.
Shared parental leave would help there, I can't imagine a SAHD would sit there claim they don't know where diapers are kept or how to make a sandwich.

Change the labour market in the U.K. so that more jobs are flexible and can enable couples to share drop offs and pick ups and not have to choose between having their children in childcare for 10 or more hours a day, giving up their chosen careers completely or giving up on one partner's career and instead finding a job that gives them the flexibility they need, or giving up paid work altogether; deal with a housing market that makes life quite so expensive and causes so many people to have to commute long distances away from family in order to get to work; increase tax so you can better subsidise quality childcare; improve infrastructure and public transport so that those who still have to commute do not spend stressful hours stuck on trains, buses or in cars; change societal attitudes to "men's work" and "women's work;" and Bob's your Uncle. ;-)

Because if the woman works they'll actually be doing 2 full time jobs as it's mostly women who handle all the child/house needs (whether working or not). When men work they generally do not devote as much time or energy to needs of the children etc.

Though my experience (my own DH and others who have had a stint as primary caregiver), sharing care in a way that has the father doing a stint as primary caregiver can make a big difference in shifting those behaviours.

Are the people implying that child care workers (who are regulated by OfSTED btw) are abusing young children the same people who seem to suggest to random women on the internet that they should consider child minding as a career?

Not so far as I'm aware.

Bread- yes it's all about laying down patterns of expectations and behaviour which then have a knock on.... dad takes some of the parental leave, thereby building some of the routine domestic chores - laundry, running the hoover round- into his day, thereby building the expectation with his employer that he is a hands on dad and may take time out with the next baby. Meanwhile mum goes back into work earlier than if she'd taken the entire parental leave... thereby reinforcing the message that women aren't the default parent to stay at home ....

if your husband genuinely outearns you by multiples, you need to ask yourself why this is.
Did you start off earning the same?
Did he go for promotions and you didn't?
Did you prioritise his career over yours?
Did you pick a partner with greater earning potential in the first place?

im the first to take a stand against inequalities but frankly you don't arrive overnight in a situation where your husband out earns you many times over without having made choices somewhere along the way.

Munster has described our situation perfectly.

Jassy - totally. My husband is an ex chef so always did the majority of the cooking but now he's at home with the kids he's taken on more responsibility for other chores. And maybe because I'm a woman or because I have had stints at home on mat leave, I do a lot more house work / weekend childcare than dads who work FT. One massive advantage of our set up is the equality on that front, and I feel very lucky that unlike many friends I don't have to nag him to clean etc, he just does it. I know some people who are using the new rules to both have time off work together at the same time. Lovely for coping with a new born and pre schooler but I do think it's done anything to change their very traditional gender divide on the house work front.

Sorry missed off point of my last comment, I meant it's important for establishing equality for men to have stints as the primary caret while the mum goes to work

munster I don't need to ask myself that, I know the answer perfectly well. It's d) for me. I could have had a very well paying career if I'd wanted to but I preferred to do something I really wanted to.

Easy isn't it round :)

munster there are lots of reasons why men out earn women that have been shared here, some of which individual women could do something about and some that they can't.

If I answered your questions it would be yes, no, no, no.

handbag gets to the nub of this for me (and I've been talking about the issue of over 30 years as a mother including on Women's Hour and in articles). Women still marry "up", men who are older and earn more . I didn't. I married a teacher and I'm a lawyer so I earned 10x more.

A lot of even high earner women aren't prepared to do that - they want a man a bit older who earns more. Men are not so bothered about that if we are talking about careers, rather than two people working in Tesco on the minimum wage.

Sweden shows that things might not change very quickly unless the state becomes heavily involved in influencing decisions (e.g. take paternal leave or the overall parental leave period is reduced - women cannot take men's share), there is a general acceptance of high tax rates enabling heavily subsidised childcare, employers in the country are onboard, and there is a societal attitude in favour of lower working hours for all and work flexibility. An alternative is a Communist system, where everybody is a worker and nobody gets to choose what sort of childcare their children have - they accept what the state offers. Another alternative is a country where most jobs are so poorly paid and welfare rates so low that to support a family and not starve, both parents must find full time work regardless of whether there is any childcare available. This might encourage use of child labour, though, to bump up family income, or crime if there are no legitimate jobs available. Any other ideas?

Well my dc are in childcare for 5 full days...my employer won't let me do 4 days pw and I don't want to SAH ft and we'd be much worse off if I did. I do agree with munster though I prioritised DH's career from my early 20s, made several moves for him that I should have thought twice about. I would not do the same again with hindsight as it's given both of us fewer options in the long run so has done us both a disservice even though DH would perhaps be earning less himself. I think I did it because he is much smarter than me and has more skills, so it seemed rational at the time.