Happy Monday!
So the question of whether to work or not to work was put to rest last week when the Pew Research Center reported that four in 10 families with children under the age of 18 are now headed by women who are the sole or primary breadwinners. It is remarkable how profound the shift has been: In 1960 just 11 percent of all households with children under 18 included mothers who were either the sole or primary source of income for the family.
An article this weekend in the New York Times – The Triumph of the Working Mother – went on to point out that at all income levels, mothers who work reported less sadness, anger and episodes of diagnosed depression than their stay-at-home counterparts. Employed moms spend fewer hours with their children than stay at home mothers, but interestingly they spend more time with their children than homemakers did in 1965! And fathers nearly tripled their amount of time with children. A review of nearly 70 studies in the US finds no significant negative effects of maternal employment on the intellectual achievement of young children, and in low-income families, children whose mothers had stable jobs had fewer behavioral problems than children whose mothers experienced job instability or who did not work at all.
So all this is to say that women are in the workforce to stay – so access to opportunities and equal pay matter. The greatest investor in the world, Warren Buffet is bullish on women – read his recent editorial and find out why. All these articles are on our LinkedIn group and in our members’ forum. They make for great reading!
See you all at an event soon!
Kind regards,
Christine
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