Taking all factors, such as trade-offs of a housewife versus working mother, into consideration, in my opinion, I believe the benefits of working mother outweigh those of housewives and women should return to the workforce not only because of their need to support families but also because of the increasing demand of women in many work fields, their personal reasons such as having financial freedom and desire to gain more power in their family. First and foremost, many women face a difficult decision of whether or not they should be a working mother instead of a housewife.
This decision is not made easily since there are various factors that can influence their decisions. According to the article “Working and non-working mothers: comparative study”, “there is 200 questionnaire survey send out, and got the returned shown 50. 5% of 101. The rates of 78% were working mothers and 22% were non-working mothers. The working mother had better mental health than the non-working mothers, but had more stress of women was not having enough time to take care of their family. For the non-working mothers, their social life was too lack. (Rout et al, 264-275).
As illustrated above, clearly women are in the tug-of-war of choosing what they want to become. Such pressure to decide intensifies when women are fully aware of the time they need to devote to their family and work as well as the responsibilities that come along. In this situation, it is a challenge for them to not only make a decision but also to make a transition from one life to another. At that moment, women may ask themselves many questions that have the influence to define what they will become.
The Research paper on Working Mothers 2
Abstract This paper examines the benefits and the negatives of the mother who works either due to financial need or her own desire to do so. Such concerns are whether or not having a working mother negatively affects the children emotionally and/or academically. This paper will explore how maternal employment affects of the child as well as the mother. For many new mothers the decision to return ...
Some questions trigger them to think about whether or not it is beneficial to go back to work while some others make them second-guess themselves about their abilities to take care of the family while working. In addition to debating with themselves regarding the issue, other outside forces play a significant role that influence women’s decision as well. There is abundance of newspaper and magazine articles that talk about mothers’ difficulties in managing home and career and that raises the question “how does women balance work and family? According to a study by the Employment Foundations, “of men who worked part time, only 12 percent did so because of childcare and family-related issues. The same figure for women part-time workers was 45 percent” (Employment Foundation, 19).
This indicates the weight women put on family over career. However, it is because such weight women put on family that makes the decision even harder. Even though it is already shown by the statistics that women place family over career, such decision comes at a price: the trade-off between family and other factors such as money, social life, power, etc.
Since many factors are involved in the trade-off, it is difficult for women to decide what they want to become. Ultimately, most women choose to return to workforce as suggested by the statistics “In ages of working population of women in Korea: 67. 5% are 25-29 years old, 53/1% are 30-35 years old, 59. 6% are 36-39 years old and 65. 6% are 40-45 years old” (Nation Statistical Office [NSO], 2007).
We can see that as age increases, the percentage of women who return to the workforce also increase.
This demonstrates that as tough as the decision of choosing between housewives and working mothers may be, most women eventually choose the latter. There are many driving forces that urge women to return to workforce, but out of the reasons such as financial abilities, personal belief and surrounding environment, “financial support should be the main reasons for the increase in women returning to the workforce (Hakim, 2003; Healy, 1999).
The Essay on Children raised with Wealthy Families versus Children raised in Poor Families
Children who are brought up in families that do not have large amounts of money are better prepared to deal with the problems of adult life than children brought up by wealthy parents. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion? Families have different financial levels and some people think that this variety of the family budgets have an impact on children skills. I believe that ...
As a common sense, low-income families are not able to give the children with high quality care as opposed to families that are well-off.
Because of this disadvantage, women, in many cases, desire to return to the work force under the initiative that they themselves can provide for their children with adequate needs. Such point is further reinforced by U. S Census Bureau, which says “families who paid for care with children under five spent, on average, $522 per month in 2002, increasing to $596 per month in 2007. In 2002, families who paid for care with a child under five spent 25% of their income on child care compared to 9% spent by higher income families” (U. S. Census Bureau 2006).
While others may argue there are other ways to provide children with a high quality care and ensure them a healthy, better childhood, going back to the workforce is the most direct, obvious way to achieve such goal. Despite the importance of financial abilities that led to women’s return to workforce, the desire for power in the family is also another factor. According to Dodd and Palagno in the article “The Working Mother Report: What Moms Think? ” Between spouse, 73% of women and 59% of men said they were “comfortable” with the idea of their partner earning more.
However when women actually are the breadwinners, this comfort lever shifts for both men and women: 87% for women said they wouldn’t mind their husbands bringing in more income than they do, and just 42% of men said they were okay with their wife earning more than they do (24-25).
This quote illustrates that more than a half of men care about their wife’s income and they do not mind if their wife can earn more than them. Thus, this shows that even if it is not emphasized, power inherently plays an important role in a family.
Normally, the amount of power one holds in the family is easily determined by the economical contribution either spouse makes to the family. However, women often sacrifice enormous amount of time for their family whether it is taking care of the children or spending time to cook, clean and organize the house. Meanwhile, in many families the husband owns the economic superiority so that the wife does not necessarily have to make any contribution economic wise. This makes the husband the main foundation of the entire family’s income, in which gives the husband the power over the wife.
The Term Paper on Role Of Woman Women Family Men
... living. Traditionally, women have been held responsible for the maintenance of family relationships and for all-family care taking-for their husbands, their children, their parents, ... 1982), and yet there are many pressures presenting women from feeling good about working. The family is seen as supporting and nurturing the ...
By aforementioned definition of power and comparison of who has more, women are considered inferior or in worst case, subordinate, to their husband. Even if women are actually sacrificing lots of time and energy to the family, it is hard to judge who is contributing more since contribution is an intangible measure. However, comparing to taking care of children and the house, the number of the husband’s paycheck is still a more obvious and tangible measure that shows the husband’s contribution to the family.
But looking from a different perspective, what if women do not simply want to accept such role assignment in a family and desire more power? What if women want to be the main economic pillar for the family and desire to have a switch of role with the husband? The answer definitely lies within their desire to achieve that goal, which is a strong driving force that will cause women to return to workforce. According to Young and Stone, “common knowledge has it that women and men see traffic lights differently. When the light changes to yellow, women treat it as a caution to put on the brakes, men as a signal to floor it.
With regard to their careers, children and family are the yellow light; women slow down and men speed up” (Young and Stone, 29).
Even though this metaphor accurately exhibits why many families have the men working and women taking care of children, it does not mean all women willingly accept such assignment of role in their family. Thus, this denial of role assignment, combined with desire for dominance in family, is a strong enough driving force that will slowly transform housewives into working mothers. Furthermore, power over the financial dominance in a household stems beyond the mere “competition” between men and women.
Women would also want the power to have and spent money to their own liking. In addition to everyday spending, buying luxurious items is an addition many people would like to include in their budget. Hypothetically speaking, with the limited financial abilities many women have while being a stay home mother, they are not able to afford to buy luxurious items. Although it does not necessarily suggest there is a vivid contrast between the financial abilities of women who work and women who stay home, the freedom spend their own money is an enough incentive for women to want to become a working mother.
The Term Paper on Working Mother Family Children Time
... women have to do so well to be able to balance families and work. Berg, Barbara J. 1986. The Crisis of the Working Mother. ... the women expressed their dislike of housework, depression and boredom while under "family" the reasons were money for the family, husband's health and husband's ... Then, if you look at the mother, it is her marital relationship with her husband, the types of employment she has, ...
It is as if they were teenagers who depend on the financial support of their parents and finally becoming independent. As many incentives there are out there for women, going back to work as preparation for future divorce probably sound the most depressing and discouraging but yet very realistic. “Although half of all marriages end in divorce, many women stay at home with children and are completely unprepared when their husbands leave them” (Percy and Susan, 1996).
Even though such occasion is not an everyday occurrence, it is not a bad idea either to return to working just in case if it happens. It is surprising that many women are so dependent of their husband that they do not know how to “function” properly if their husbands leave. In the article “You may not be a working mother today, but what about tomorrow? ” the protagonist, Allison Robley, was happy to be staying at home with her two daughters until her husband, an airline pilot, decides to get together with a younger, more attractive woman.
Allison not only was unprepared for life on her own but she also did not know how to even take care of some everyday item such as paying bills and balancing a checkbook since her husband had been managing the money all along while she was taking care of the house and children. In this example, if Allison had been working when she was with her husband, she would be better off since at least she would have learned how to manage her money and also gained a “head start” in finding jobs after her divorce with her husband.
Even though working to “prepare” for a divorce seems like somewhat of a pessimistic way for stay home mothers to reenter the job market, it is actually one of many ways for stay home mothers to see an alternate perspective that a working mother can have as much, if not more, benefits as housewives. On top of that, many housewives who feel discontent about their own life compared to others help to accelerate the rate housewives realize the benefits of going back to work.
The Term Paper on Working Women Woman States First
... century, however, acceptable occupations for working women were limited to factory labor or domestic work. Women were excluded from the professions, ... In most states abortion was legal only if the mother's life was judged to be physically endangered. In 1973, however, ... to be passive, cooperative, and obedient to their master-husbands. Women such as Stanton, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Tubman, ...
By making comparison between their lives to those who are working, many housewives develop unsatisfied attitude and blindfolded disregard of how well their current life situation actually is. As the result, the housewives begin to think about how they can change their lifestyles and Barbra S. Calhoun offers one of the numerous suggestions to ease that transition. According to Barbra S. Calhoun, maintaining one’s original identity is crucial. Because the husband is out there working, learning and growing daily, there will certainly be a critical issue in the relationship if the wife cannot keep up with the husband.
In addition, staying active and involved with others can keep the wife in contact with people who have similar interests, which in turn will occupy the wife with hobbies and duties other than taking care of their house and children. Keeping in touch with business contacts, staying active in business or professional organizations and even reading newspapers and business articles will allow women to constantly sharpen their social skills while also keeping updated with their surroundings. Continuing education is also another excellent way to ease the transition of reentering work field.
Calhoun says, “It’s nonthreatening and builds our confidence level or reentering the academic world. ” Ultimately, all the tips offered to help women smoothly reenter the work field have one objective in common: keep them alert with current news while maintaining their old contacts, knowledge and skills to fill up their daily lives. This way, those who are previously oblivious to the benefits of working mother are now presented with examples that clearly demonstrate the potential benefits working mothers can achieve while housewives may not.
As a mistake made by many women, they choose the path back to work not because they see the benefits in doing so but because they either have no choice or blindly believe going back to work is for their betterment. However, the message Sheryl Sandberg tries to deliver argue otherwise. She says “Don’t leave before you leave” in which she want to tell women “don’t enter the workforce already looking for the exit. Don’t put on the brakes. Keep a foot on the gas pedal until a decision must be made. That’s the only way to ensure that when that day comes, there will be a real decision to make” (Lean In 92-103).
The Homework on Working Women Work Time Percent
A woman's work is never done More and more women work outside and inside the home. The double demands shouldered by these women pose a threat to their physical health. Whether you are an overworked housewife or an exhausted working mother the chances are that you are always one step behind your schedule. No matter how hard women worked, they never ended up with clean homes. Housewives in these ...
Sheryl attempts to convey that women should not be looking to go back to work just because they want something different than her everyday house-chores but they should want to go back to work for the sake of themselves. Whether it is their desire for financial power, or preparation to reenter workforce, or society’s need of them in different fields, women should reenter in consideration of their own lives. In conclusion, with careful, balanced choices and decisions, there are actually more benefits of being a working mother than there appears to be even though statistics may not directly suggest such benefits.
For women, family is certainly significant but it should not replace their entire life. Instead, balancing their own social life and job while maintaining equilibrium between family and children can bring women the self-confidence, financial freedom, societal immersion and family-power equilibrium they seek that are otherwise unavailable if they have chosen to be housewives and those are exactly the reasons why women should become working mothers instead of housewives. Work Cited
Rout et al, “Working and non-working mothers: a comparative study. ” Published by Emeraid Group Publishing, Limited, United Kingdom, 1997, pp. 264-275 A young Phang and Ki-Hak Lee, “Experience of Social Support among working mothers: a concept map. ” 147, 2009 Reserved by the American Counseling Association National Statistical Office. (2007).
Annual report on the economically active population survey. Seoul, Korea: National Statistical Survey Institute. Hakim, C. (2003).
Competing family models, competing social policies. Family Matter, 64, 52-61. Retrieved October 7, 2008, from http://www. aifs. gov. au/institute/pubs/fm2003/fm64/ch. pdf Healy, G. (1999).
Structuring commitments in interrupted careers: Career breaks, commitment and the life cycle in teaching. Gender, Work and Organization, 6, 185-201 U. S. Census Burean (2005).
Table 6: Average weekly child care expenditures of families with employed makers that make payments, by age groups and selected characteristics: Winter 2002.
Retrieved August 6, 2007, from http://www. census. gov/population/www/socdemo/child/ppl-177. html Melinda Dodd and Teresa Palagano, The Working Mother Report: What Moms Think? November 2012, from www. workingmother. com Mitchell Young and Book Editor. Work and Family. 2012. Print Percy, Susan, You may not be a working mother today, but what about tomorrow? 221. 5, November 1996:224 Sheryl Sandberg. Lean In. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. Print