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> Women often want to take more time off after having babies, scale back on work, etc. Men usually don't. Is there data or research to support this statement t

> Women often want to take more time off after having babies, scale back on work, etc. Men usually don't. Is there data or research to support this statement that women want to take more time off and (by implication) men don't want to (or want to less)? I don't have kids, but looking among my friends, both the mothers and fathers want to spend as much time as possible with their kids. While the fathers often went back to work before the mothers, it wasn't because they wanted to, it was more about the cultural pressure for them to be the bread winners and not about them "wanting" to care for their kids less than the mothers.

einhverfr 15y ago
I don't have hard data. All I know is that I have known more than one women who quit her job after being told she couldn't take a year off following childbirth and never known a man to do the same. I have also known far more women to take unpaid timeoff than men, and to cut back on work following having kids. Interestingly the data presented in the TC article is stuff that's been true for over ten years: unmarried women without kids earn more than similarly experienced unmarried men without kids. This then reverses particularly after a married woman has kids.
Anechoic 15y ago
edit: I can't respond to your response, so I'll post it here > have known more than one women who quit her job after being told she couldn't take a year off following childbirth and never known a man to do the same. I have also known far more women to take unpaid timeoff than men, and to cut back on work following having kids. Sure, I know plenty of women who have done the same, but it's never been that they wanted to do so more than men, it's that the cultural expectations ("father has to be the breadwinner") meant that the fathers felt they had to keep working, while it's more cultural acceptable for the women to stay home. IOW, all of the young fathers I know would gladly quit their jobs and stay at home if money wasn't a problem (and in the case of one friend who's wife is a surgeon, that's exactly what he did).
- einhverfr 15y ago
  I think one has to wait for a while before replying at that depth. Obviously it is impossible to adequately measure subjective things like how badly someone wants something except as a function of what that individual is willing to give up to get it. Women are more likely to sacrifice career for spending time with infant children, so we can conclude that they prefer as a group on average the latter more than the former, at least when compared with men. I don't know of a better epistemological way to measure this. I think you have a fairly complicated set of balancing acts that happen in corporate America which make this necessary. The big one is that maternity/paternity leave has to be as short as possible to reduce disruption to the business, and it has to be fair so the same policies have to apply to men as to women (otherwise you have a big discrimination mess on your hands, bigger than we have now). So what this means in effect is that the system demands that one parent makes a sacrifice. As we all know how financially strapped middle-income families are (esp. after the rise of the two income family, see Elizabeth Warren's excellent book "The Two Income Trap"), this means one has to go back to work soon. For biological reasons,* this fundamentally favors the man (who will then be favored when it comes time to assess promotions). * When I worked at Microsoft, you got 1 month paid leave and up to two months unpaid. One month is probably not enough to get really adjusted to life as a new parent, especially for the mother who is going through hormonal changes as well as sleep cycle changes, may be breastfeeding, etc. So after that, the dad goes back to work and the mom stays home for at least a few more weeks. However, even this cannot explain the willingness to quit so one can take a year or two off work. That's separate.

einhverfr 15y ago

I don't have hard data. All I know is that I have known more than one women who quit her job after being told she couldn't take a year off following childbirth and never known a man to do the same. I have also known far more women to take unpaid timeoff than men, and to cut back on work following having kids. Interestingly the data presented in the TC article is stuff that's been true for over ten years: unmarried women without kids earn more than similarly experienced unmarried men without kids. This then reverses particularly after a married woman has kids.

Anechoic 15y ago

edit: I can't respond to your response, so I'll post it here > have known more than one women who quit her job after being told she couldn't take a year off following childbirth and never known a man to do the same. I have also known far more women to take unpaid timeoff than men, and to cut back on work following having kids. Sure, I know plenty of women who have done the same, but it's never been that they wanted to do so more than men, it's that the cultural expectations ("father has to be the breadwinner") meant that the fathers felt they had to keep working, while it's more cultural acceptable for the women to stay home. IOW, all of the young fathers I know would gladly quit their jobs and stay at home if money wasn't a problem (and in the case of one friend who's wife is a surgeon, that's exactly what he did).

einhverfr 15y ago
I think one has to wait for a while before replying at that depth. Obviously it is impossible to adequately measure subjective things like how badly someone wants something except as a function of what that individual is willing to give up to get it. Women are more likely to sacrifice career for spending time with infant children, so we can conclude that they prefer as a group on average the latter more than the former, at least when compared with men. I don't know of a better epistemological way to measure this. I think you have a fairly complicated set of balancing acts that happen in corporate America which make this necessary. The big one is that maternity/paternity leave has to be as short as possible to reduce disruption to the business, and it has to be fair so the same policies have to apply to men as to women (otherwise you have a big discrimination mess on your hands, bigger than we have now). So what this means in effect is that the system demands that one parent makes a sacrifice. As we all know how financially strapped middle-income families are (esp. after the rise of the two income family, see Elizabeth Warren's excellent book "The Two Income Trap"), this means one has to go back to work soon. For biological reasons,* this fundamentally favors the man (who will then be favored when it comes time to assess promotions). * When I worked at Microsoft, you got 1 month paid leave and up to two months unpaid. One month is probably not enough to get really adjusted to life as a new parent, especially for the mother who is going through hormonal changes as well as sleep cycle changes, may be breastfeeding, etc. So after that, the dad goes back to work and the mom stays home for at least a few more weeks. However, even this cannot explain the willingness to quit so one can take a year or two off work. That's separate.