Why is it always the woman who goes part time?

[maggiethemagpie]

I never really saw blatant sexism until after I had a baby.....I'm sure it's always been there but I never really thought about it until I had kids and realised that I am very very unusual in that my partner was happy to stay home and do the childcare (luckily he has an income from property) and I chose to return to work, and do a demanding full time job. Sometimes I think we must be living the feminist dream - if indeed the early feminists dreamed of having households with working mothers and househusbands. I'm sure some of them must have. Anyway it's a great example to set my kids.

However amongst all my friends who have had kids, pretty much without exception it is the woman who's had to make the career sacrifice and go part time or stopped work. I don't think many of these women have sat down with their partner and worked out which one would prefer to go part time, and it just so happens to be the woman. I think it's a foregone conclusion that it's the woman's job. Even when both partners work full time, nine times out of ten it's the woman who is doing the nursery drop offs and pick ups. EG my boss returned from maternity recently and it's a big deal when she has to work late and get him to pick the kid up - they never just take it in turns every day or anything. Or, a colleague was forced to go part time to full time. She was really worried about picking up the kids from school on some days as she couldn't get them into after school club. No mention of her partner doing this, or if HE should ask to go part time.

I think until more men begin to consider being the ones to stay at home, things won't progress socially in this area. I know the woman has to be the one to give birth, and until shared parental leave came in recently, only the woman could take an extended period of time off work. But that's just the maternity period, which now can be transferred to the man or shared - what about all the years after that.

Does anyone think this will ever change or are we doomed, as women being the ones to give birth will always be seen as the obvious choice to be the part timer/ stay at home parent?

Well the main thing is that you don't use a technically accurate term to refer to what you're doing, in case you become solely responsible for dissuading men from SAHPing. Everything else is secondary, really.

I think "babysitting" is definitely something done by others, so it grates if a parent uses that term.

Looking after children however, childcare, isn't. Thing is, it's not merely about presence, but attention. If you are both in a cafe with your toddler, and one parent regularly notices that DC has strayed out of the play area and needs shepherding away from the door etc, that parent is the one doing the childcare. If both parents are watching and intervening where necessary, both are doing it.

Dh was a stay at home dad for a year. He has lots of stay at home dad friends and they do stuff like the dad weekends away camping.

Dh knows more stay at home dads as all my friends bar one work full time.

'Toast (or anyone else for that matter!), do you think it's significant then that my partner has his own, independent income (from property)? So he can be the SAHP without being financially dependent on me? I wonder if a lot of would be SAHDs are put off by the notion of financial dependence?'

I know this wasn't to me but Dh never minded. I told him what his allowance was for the week and he could get the shopping and the kids stuff. Dh likes it as he doesn't like finances and he is like this even when he is work. I have always given him an allowance.

The women I know actually want to be the ones to stay home with the kids more and just work part time. It doesn't mean you're less of a feminist or anything.

The women I know actually want to be the ones to stay home with the kids more and just work part time. It doesn't mean you're less of a feminist or anything.

I don't see how the gender pay gap can be closed until as many men are making this choice as women.

I know a few men who are 50+ and who took no responsibility for their children when they were young - their wives worked part time or not at all while they worked in very full-on jobs. The result is that they're now facing into retirement, they don't have nearly the same connection to their children as their wife has, their wives have their own lives going on and they're left with plenty of money and not much else. I don't think the whole 'men work, women stay at home' thing benefits men any more than it benefits women in the long run.

The division of labour where one person entirely does one thing and the other person entirely does the other is not at all sensible because if one person dies/leaves the other is left to struggle. In a partnership between parents it makes much more sense for both to do some of everything so that they can properly support each other/take up the slack and so that they can both survive if something goes wrong.

I am such a mug that after DCs I have worked part time even though I am the higher earner.
I will admit I do resent it.
My ideal would have been that we each did 4 days but DH was not up for it. He feels that he cannot run his business on 4 days and so any time he does take off with DC is basically him trying to work from home with them in front if the TV and no household chores get done at all. Or alternatively he pushes it off on his mother.
Gradually as DC have got older I have clawed a bit back and now I do 3 school pick ups and he does 2 plus covers any sickness as he is self employed.

I don't feel it would be a blow for feminism if I forced him to give up work even though all the arguments usually used on women apply eg his wages didn't cover the childcare when we had 2 pre-schoolers. I don't want to force him into something he doesn't want just because if the sexes were reversed it would surely have been done to me. I just want us to be equal. We both want to work. We both have DC who need us so we should share equally.

If in other families one person does not want to work that is equally fine as a choice as long as their contribution is respected and valued.
However we do need to be honest and examine our assumptions in the light of living in a patriarchal society.
Do women overwhelmingly just want to be the main carer and men the breadwinner or is this just what we are supposed to think/ the way it's always been/ the way society works?
It often makes short term financial sense for the woman to give up work but Why IS it the woman who usually earns less? Age difference, sexism in the careers we are 'allowed' to choose, barriers to progression? Why aren't more men willing to see it the way I do and support their partners choice to work even if there's a financial price?

I personally think that shared parental leave will be a big game changer on this and I have started to see a lot more men taking this up, requesting part time working and more becoming SAHDs.

I am sick of the way that DH gets a big pat on the back for being so enlightened as to drop his DC at school and pick them up 2 days a week (isn't he good? I wish my husband/ your dad was like that) whereas there is no such recognition of my funding of most of our expenses and in fact my choice to work is judged negatively. 'Don't you miss them? I could never leave them...'

A lot more of this is due to attitudes concealed beneath a surface of practical reasons

Really interesting to read this thread.

There are a number of dads on my DCs school run. I think the shared parental leave is great, I really hope that it is a step forward in evening this sort of thing out. There are a few people in my office who have taken it up, and one new dad who has gone part time and also changed his hours to be able to leave earlier to do nursery pick ups (his DW works FT).

Having said that, despite being the higher earner I did go part time after having children - it means DH and I earn about the same now I am part time. We didn't just assume however, and discussed in detail whether either or both of us would go part time - in the end I wanted to and he didn't. He does have a lot of flexibility though, and does most morning drop offs to school / nursery. Both of us working does mean a lot of organisation and co-ordination so we know when each of us is able or unable to do the normal drop offs and pick ups. So far it seems to be working though!

I have a theory that it's to do with the average age gaps between couples.

Women tend to couple up with men older than them.

So therefore these male partners are more likely to be further on in their careers and earn more.

This is reproduced across society and becomes self perpetuating.

I think you are partly right Lightbulbon but I also think there's the effect of men tending to do more highly paid jobs than women (and get promoted quicker in the same job) so even if they are the same age the man earns more. And some men are just happy to let their wife do the work even those that you'd think were reasonably enlightened.

It's hard for men who want to do their share though, DH just had a chat with his current boss (who has himself worked PT in the past) but his frame of reference was very much 'you can be flexible so you can fit work and life round each other' rather than 'I'm not surprised that you want to reduce your hours when you have young children'. For us the juggling round each others jobs has been interesting, DH went FT during each of my maternity leave (he had to apply some pressure for the second time, but it was after shared parental leave was introduced so he basically said 'find the money to let me go back FT for a year or I'll take 6 months off that you'll have to pay me for'). He then went FT when he changed jobs to one that was in our local town (no commute and flexitime better for family life), now I'm trying to get promoted and may need to go FT again (which is why DH was talking to his new boss about flexible working) but timing me increasing hours and him decreasing hours is fun.

Dh always offered to stay at home but realistically we needed his wage. He often dos the sick days in primary and I always came home to a tidy clean house but a moaning child as daddy had been busy tidying. where as I would put my child first X

I think societal attitude has a massive impact here. There is such a default supposition that (a) women should do the childcare and (b) men are incapable of doing it.

I'm pregnant and after my 12 week scan had a midwife appointment. This happened to be with the midwife I saw when pregnant with DS and she asked how DS was. DH responded along the lines of 'fine but I wish he'd sleep through the night'. She told me I should be getting up at night. I pointed out that I work more than DH and it was his turn (leaving aside the fact that at 12 weeks pregnant I wasn't feeling 100% and had greater need of the unbroken sleep!) Her response? 'But you're the mum'. Then last week DH took DS to local NT place. They went to the cafe. Cue: 'are you coping' to DH and 'your mummy wouldn't let you eat jelly' to DS.

It hardly encourages men to do an equal share, does it

Your midwife said you should be getting up in the night? I'm shocked.

Yup. Because clearly possession of ovaries is necessary in order to settle a snuffly toddler

My dh did all of the appointments with health visitors and baby weigh ins. It was never mentioned, except I did have to attend a 6 week check at home with dh and the baby.

I think it already is changing. In my group of friends it is the lowest paid person who goes part time/gives up work. That has meant one man giving up his job and becoming a childminder, one man going part time and then stopping work completely when they moved away for his partners career, one woman who didn't work before having children and still doesn't, 2 women going part time and me and DP who both work full time. I do, however, like in a fairly cosmopolitan city and most of my friends would probably describe themselves as feminists.

It is still remarked on when a man goes part time and there is still much more of an expectation for the woman to cover children care so I do think there is still a long way to go but I'm hopeful that things are evolving. I hope that when my DS has children then the decision will be much more 50/50 or at least based on economics rather than sex or some outdated beliefs about the ideal family.

I've seen Sweden mentioned on this thread (and on other threads). That makes a lot of sense as it is the world leader on gender workplace equality (along with Norway and Iceland).

But there seems to be a suggestion on here that this is because either a. men work part time more in Sweden so they can do more childcare or b. women working part time is relatively uncommon in Sweden.

Here are the actual figures from the EU labour force stats...

Percentage of adults in work, women then men:

Sweden 72,76.
UK 67,76
EU 59,70

Percentage of women and men in part time work, women then men:

Sweden 39,13
UK 44,13
EU 32,8

So women in Sweden have a very high workplace participation, but men in Sweden are no more likely to be out of the workplace or working part time than British men. Both Britain and Sweden have high numbers of women working and this is linked to two things a. part time workers and b. affordable childcare. Sweden has most children under five in part time childcare.

Another major difference is ethnicity. In areas of the UK with low levels of ethnic diversity, women in the workforce is higher than in Sweden - highest is 77% in Cumbria and much lower in in areas of diverse ethnicity, lowest is 50% in Birmingham. So it will be interesting to see if workplace participation in Sweden changes as it becomes more diverse.

In the UK (don't have figures for other countries), men with children are more likely to be working than men without while the opposite is true for women. So perhaps one element here is than when they choose who to have children with, women are far less likely to select partners who have no job/career/stable work history.