Report says Almost 40 percent of Mothers Are Now Family Breadwinners; Earn More Than Dads

A Pew Research Center report found that nearly 40 percent of mothers are now the family breadwinners. The report that was released today says women head almost four in ten families with children under the age of 18 as the sole or primary earners for their families.

The trend has been rising because of the recent recession and due to an increase in births to single mothers, according to the Pew Research Center report.

The report found that there has been a sweeping change in traditional gender roles and family life over a the past few decades. The number of married mothers who earn more than their husbands rose from 4 percent in 1960 to 15 percent in 2011. It has nearly quadrupled. Single mothers who are the sole providers for their families have tripled in number. The rose from 7 percent to 25 percent in the same period.

Philip Cohen, a University of Maryland sociologist who studies gender and family trends, explained “The decade of the 2000s witnessed the most rapid change in the percentage of married mothers earning more than their husbands of any decade since 1960. This reflects the larger job losses experienced by men at the beginning of the Great Recession. Also, some women decided to work more hours or seek better jobs in response to their husbands’ job loss, potential loss or declining wages.”

The report found that Americans are ambivalent about mothers who work outside the home. Three-fourths of people who were surveyed said mothers who work outside the home make it harder to raise children. Half of the respondents said that it’s bad for marriages. Nearly half of the respondents said they felt it was better if mothers stayed home with young children. Eight percent of people surveyed said it was better if fathers stayed home with young children.

The Pew Research Center Report also cited other polls that found that close to 80 percent of Americans don’t think mothers should return to the traditional roles of the 1950s middle-class housewife.

Kim Parker, one of the report’s authors, said traditional gender roles “are a deeply ingrained set of beliefs. It will take a while for those views to catch up with the reality of the way people are living today. The public is really of two minds.”

 by Tony Sokol