The juggling act.
Negrea Sherrie
Over the last four decades, the proportion of working mothers with
children ages 18 and younger at home in the United States has
skyrocketed from 47 percent in the mid-1970s to 71 percent last year,
according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. More mothers are
working full-time, year-round than ever before.
Yet the progress of integrating mothers into the labor force has
not come without challenges. Although a growing number of fathers opt to
stay at home part- or full-time with children, in the United States
prevailing gender norms still suggest that women, employed or not, are
primarily responsible for child-rearing. (Indeed, a 2011 Census Bureau
report on child care in America assumed the mother to be the
"designated parent" in households headed by two parents.) And
working-class women, in particular, spend a greater proportion of their
income on child care and face trouble juggling career and family because
of unstable work environments.
Researchers across the College of Human Ecology--social scientists,
developmental psychologists, economists, demographers, and nutrition
experts--are studying these broad trends to help paint a clearer picture
of the demands facing working mothers. Their investigations raise
important questions about how to reshape governmental policies and
social structures to provide more stability for mothers trying to manage
the work-family balance.
In the Department of Policy Analysis and Management, a common
thread is the diverging fortunes between middle- and upper-income and
working-class mothers. The most highly educated mothers, for example,
are more likely to return and remain in the workforce after the birth of
a child than are less-educated mothers.
"The reality is that professional women are more likely to be
in the labor force," said Sharon Sassier, professor of policy
analysis and management who studies family dynamics. "In part,
that's because the workforce wants to accommodate them.
They're highly skilled, and they're harder to replace."
The percentage of women in the workforce who have a college degree has
more than tripled in the past 40 years.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
By contrast, working mothers in lower-skilled jobs, such as those
employed in the 24/7 service economy, often churn in and out of the
labor force or have irregular schedules that make it difficult to meet
their families' needs. For instance, their job instability and
fluctuating schedules are associated with higher levels of behavioral
and school-related problems in their children, finds Rachel Dunifon,
associate professor of policy analysis and management.
The working patterns of highly educated women are markedly
different from those of less educated women, creating a growing divide
among employed mothers, Sassler's research shows. In a 2010 paper,
for example, Sassier and her co-authors report that among women who gave
birth to their first child between 2001 and 2003, 82 percent of
college-educated women were working during their pregnancies, compared
to less than a third of those who did not graduate from high school.
Sassler has recently shifted her research to the lack of women
working in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields. In
a recent study based on a nationally representative sample of men and
women, nearly 90 percent of whom had obtained their college degree by
1990, Sassler and her co-researchers find that the dearth of women in
STEM fields is related to the work climate they face in these positions,
since women are less likely than men to enter into these fields when
they have identical experience and expectations about their careers.
Even when they do work in STEM positions, half of such women leave
for other fields within 12 years of completing their degrees, they
found. Motherhood, a common culprit, does not appear to be to blame for
the shortage, Sassier argues, finding that "women in STEM positions
are no more likely to leave the labor force when they have
children." Sassier, who in recent years has received funding from
the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health to
study the matter, suggests that a better understanding of the work
climate STEM women face and the factors that prompt them to leave the
field could help retain them.
The underrepresentation of women in STEM positions, particularly in
academia, is also the focus of the Cornell Institute for Women and
Science (CIWS), founded by Wendy M. Williams, a professor of human
development, and Stephen J. Ceci, the Helen L. Carr Professor of
Developmental Psychology. Williams and Ceci argue that the lack of women
in academic positions in engineering, physics, and mathematics
departments results from women opting not to apply for tenure-track jobs
because of the incompatibility of research professorships with raising
children. CIWS is attempting to combat this trend by informing
university administrators, professors, and others about the challenges
women face in STEM positions and recommending policy changes for the
academy (see sidebar on page 18).
At the other end of the spectrum, working mothers employed in
low-wage jobs face drastically different parenting challenges that
relate to the conditions of their work, according to Dunifon. In a 2010
book, Mother's Work and Children's Lives: Low-Income Families
after Welfare Reform, Dunifon and her co-authors report that for some
less-advantaged mothers, work can bring stability but others face long
commutes, nonstandard hours, low-wage jobs, and menial labor.
"The conditions of jobs common in the low-wage market do pose
difficulties for mothers," Dunifon said. "Service-sector jobs
often have schedules that change day to day, making it difficult for
mothers to arrange child care, plan meals together, or enact other
important family routines. These jobs also have high levels of
turnover."
Using a sample of predominately single Michigan mothers who left
welfare beginning in the late 1990s, Dunifon finds that children fare
better when their mothers are employed in stable jobs. Most of the women
in the five-year study, however, held jobs that lasted only for an
average of seven months.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Besides job instability, Dunifon's research identifies two
factors in low-wage employment that are associated with behavioral
problems in children: working the night shift and commuting long
distances. In a recent study, Dunifon and her co-authors find that
children of mothers who work the night shift--between 11 p.m. and 7
a.m.--exhibit higher levels of aggressive behavior than children of
mothers who work other schedules. Similarly, children of mothers who
commute long distances, defined as an average of 80 minutes per day, had
more behavior problems, including aggression, withdrawal, and
depression.
To reverse these trends, Dunifon argues that employers, especially
those in the service sector, should strive to offer more stable
schedules and that more funding be allocated for education and training
programs. "Investing in improving the skills of single mothers
would not only help the moms but also the kids," she said.
Working moms struggle with children's nutrition
As new mothers re-enter the workforce, one of the first challenges
they face is how to continue breastfeeding their infants. The American
Academy of Pediatrics recommends that mothers breastfeed their children
for at least 12 months. But in the United States, 23 percent of infants
born in 2006 were breastfeeding at 1 year of age, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Yet over the last decade, according to Kathleen Rasmussen,
professor of nutritional sciences, a "quiet revolution" has
been taking place in the feeding of U.S. infants as more women have been
using electric double-breast pumps, developed by Medela, a Swiss
company, that are more effective and more affordable than previous
models. "Having a pump like this available allows you to pump your
milk in sufficient quantities so you can store enough milk to breastfeed
your baby longer in life," Rasmussen said.
When breastfeeding mothers return to work, they must find suitable
places to express their milk. In 2008, Cornell's Department of
Inclusion and Workforce Diversity asked Lorraine Maxwell, associate
professor of design and environmental analysis, if her "Programming
Methods in Design" class could create recommendations for
developing lactation rooms on campus. Among the suggestions made by the
class were that the lactation rooms be places where the women felt
comfortable, such as a space that is part of a restroom suite, and that
the space be secure and private.
"Cornell had already identified the need," Maxwell said.
"It was mostly for staff and graduate students since faculty women
have their own offices. But staff and graduate students often work in
large, open areas. Maybe they have a cubicle, but it's not a
private place."
Using the class's recommendations, Cornell built 14 formal
lactation rooms in addition to the three that were already in place.
"The students not only inspired us to increase the number of
lactation rooms but also provided guidance on what should be included in
each room," said Lynette Chappell Williams, associate vice
president for the Department of Inclusion and Workforce Diversity.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
As their children grow older, working mothers remain concerned
about their families' nutrition. The rise of maternal employment
since the 1970s has coincided with a spiraling increase in childhood
obesity, leading many researchers to conclude that children are more
likely to be overweight if their mothers work.
Why this correlation exists is the focus of a recent study
coauthored by John Cawley, professor of policy analysis and management
who researches the economic causes and consequences of obesity. Using a
national survey documenting how Americans spend their time, Cawley finds
that women who work full time spend about three-and-a-half fewer hours
per day on activities such as grocery shopping, preparing meals, and
playing with their children, compared to stay-at-home and unemployed
mothers.
Men offset little of this decrease, however. Cawley's study
finds that in homes with employed mothers, working fathers contribute
just 13 extra minutes to such daily activities while nonworking fathers
devote 41 additional minutes to these chores. To compensate for the time
lost while at work, mothers are more likely to purchase prepared foods
either from restaurants or grocery stores, a phenomenon that is linked
to a higher risk of childhood obesity.
Working mothers should not shoulder the blame, Cawley cautioned.
Indeed, they produce additional benefits for children such as more money
to provide for family needs. Furthermore, the study does not prove that
employment alone drives the way mothers spend their time.
"Mothers who choose to work might be those who enjoy cooking
less and who would cook less whether they are working or not,"
Cawley said.
"Even if one thinks that there is a causal relationship, you
don't have to turn back the clock with respect to women's
labor force participation to address the problem of childhood
obesity," he said.
What could combat rising childhood obesity rates, Cawley said, are
new laws that will require chain restaurants to post calorie counts for
their products and a commitment by schools to promote healthy eating and
offer more physical education classes.
"I think that one of the most important contributions that
social scientists can make is to offer a dispassionate investigation of
sensitive and emotional topics," he said. "The responsibility
of the social scientist is to do careful, honest work and promote an
Open, reasoned discussion of such issues."
Human Ecology faculty explore the challenges working mothers face
to balance their careers and families.
For more information:
John Cawley
jhc38@cornell.edu
Stephen Ceci
sic9@cornell.edu
Rachel Dunifon
red26@cornell.edu
Lorraine Maxwell
lem3@cornell.edu
Kathleen Rasmussen
kmr5@cornell.edu
Sharon Sassler
ss589@cornell.edu
Wendy Williams
wmw5@cornell.edu
