This phenomena is so deep-rooted, psychologically, socially, culturally, that I'm hard-pressed to name anything to be done about it that would be politically acceptable.

For a longtime I was an advocate of straight meritocracies in all walks of life; I felt that would naturally produce a diversity that would at least roughly approximate the demographics of the group competing for the seats at a particular table. Things like the above post have been disabusing me of that naive notion for a while now.

If the top achievers in a given career have managed to sidestep issues like balancing childcare and professional responsibilities, then they're not likely to think to structure their workplace in a way that's sensitive to those tensions.

Of course it should really go both ways too. We also don't have a particularly good structure set up for men who want to stay home and limit their work responsibilities in favor of family either. In many fields, the "catering or bakeshop" analogy simply doesn't exist -- a "family friendly" alternative is nearly impossible, so people who think in those terms (and women are overrepresented in this category due to all sorts of social pressure) simply drop out of the field altogether.

If only there was a political party in this country that cared about "family values" beyond "ABORTION BAD!"

you and Matt need to get a family before you get too much into this. These studies are systematically slanted against men by the women's studies set.

Was it this same study that decided outdoors work doesn't count? - I guess I spent lastweekend redoing the gutters just for fun.

Or was it this one that decided that only certain parts of child-care, like that actual dressing, feeding, etc. are worth counting.

Once you are a dad, you'll realized that you have a real comparative advantage in the child care supervisory stuff. Dads are more fun, just a fact. Spending 20 hours over a weekend keeping the kids entertained is work. sure its fun as well, but so is cooking. Not counting it is just B.S.

ya'll are going to think this comment is somehow misogynist until you are a dad, and then you'll realize how these studies are slanted and how much they come out of an anti-dad agenda.

i wonder what the division of labor stats look like in families headed by same sex couples. are two moms or two dads more likely to divide labor 50/50 or does one person put more time in than the other?

"Once you are a dad, you'll realized that you have a real comparative advantage in the child care supervisory stuff. Dads are more fun, just a fact. Spending 20 hours over a weekend keeping the kids entertained is work. sure its fun as well, but so is cooking. Not counting it is just B.S."

No, what's BS is unilaterally choosing that you'll play with the kids and your spouse will clean up their crap (literally), change and wash their clothes, bathe them, cook for them, etc. Then telling that spouse to shut up because you're working too when s/he (but almost always she) complains that she gets all the drudgery and you get to play with the kids all weekend. And don't tell me it's because dads are genetically fun -- the kids are just making the rational choice between hanging out with the parent that plays with them all day vs. the parent who spends most of the time cleaning up after them.

In any event, to the person who complained about any option for men who want to stay home, there is. I traded a high-paying $250k/yr gig for a government job paying a relatively more modest $65k/yr so I could be with my daughter for 90% of her non-daycare waking hours. When we were negotiating pay and benefits, I told them I didn't want a cent more than their initial offer -- but I was going to go to every doctor's appointment, every parent-teacher conference, etc., and I was going to be the parent that stayed home with the kid when needed the vast majority of the time. And I have. There's a reason she calls for "Daddy" whenever she is hurt or distressed (much to her mother's chagrin), and why she woke her mother up at 7:00 AM to go get Daddy a Father's Day present yesterday.

My employer hires lots of women, but hasn't hired any extras to make up for single moms calling in sitterless.

If they did, then once a week when everyone shows up it would be like a treat. The extra person could go catch up on chores, or maybe do a project to improve something.

Instead, we're shorthanded most days and the dependable people resent the ones with monthly baby sitting issues. Gender stereotypes are being reinforced.

I'm a father and I actually do more than half of the house work (we both work full time and always have). But that seems to be unusual -- among my similarly situated peers, the women have tended to make the lion's share of the sacrifices -- even where the economics don't necessarily make that the logical choice.

I think that this will fade in the next generation, but it will happen only if women insist upon it. My advice --don't marry assholes or mama's boys -- especially guys who seem like they can't cook a meal, clean a bathroom, or do a load of laundry. Run -- run away fast if you see that.

"My employer hires lots of women, but hasn't hired any extras to make up for single moms calling in sitterless."

It's not "monthly babysitting issues." It's that little kids get sick pretty often, especially when they are in daycare.

And it's not just single moms. Unless I'm in court or a meeting I stay home when needed with our munchkin. If there's a brief due soon, I get an extension (it's funny -- when I tell opposing counsel that I can't get the brief done because I have to take care of my sick kid, they literally have never pushed back on that).

It's actually very difficult without a stay-at-home parent if you don't have nearby relatives who can emergency babysit. If your kid is sick, he or she can't go to daycare/preschool. Most backup care services require about 12 hours notice to line somebody up -- so if the first time you can tell the kid is sick is when they wake up, someone is staying home.

"My advice --don't marry assholes or mama's boys -- especially guys who seem like they can't cook a meal, clean a bathroom, or do a load of laundry. Run -- run away fast if you see that."

I wouldn't go as far as saying stay away from guys who can't cook a meal, clean a bathroom, or do a load of laundry -- I can't sweep effectively for the life of me, Dr. Mrs. Joe can't quite grasp the concept of vacuuming (yes, you do have to vacuum every square inch of the carpet, and yes, furniture and toys will need to be moved every time), and I feel sorry for our guests who have to wash themselves in our disgusting showers that we clean (badly) about once every six months.

But you need to have conversations/fights -- often -- about the division of labor in the household. I'm a morning person. Dr. Mrs. Joe isn't. So I get up with the munchkin while she sleeps until the crack o' 7:30. Frequently that means I have to drag my hungover a** out of bed at 5:30 and play with a hyperactive two year-old for a couple of hours while my partner sleeps blissfully for a few more hours. Yes, it sucks, and yes, I get resentful. But she's the one that picks the kid up from daycare at 5:00 most days. And every few weeks or months we complain, and discuss, and usually come to the realization that our current set-up is the best of a "bad" situation.

With respect to my wife and I (we live apart most of the time due to my job), when we are together, I do most of the cooking and slightly under the majority of the cleaning, laundry, etc. I guess in the end, we end up being about even in terms of household chores.

However, she does a lot more of the childrearing than I do. There are many reasons for this, some of which are quite complicated and unique to our situation (my wife adopted our child before we got married -- I actually came into my wife's life at the same time our daughter did), but some of it breaks down simply to 'kids take a lot of energy and my wife has a lot more energy and endurance than I do'.

How much of "women doing more of the work" is simply a function of, stereotypes aside, women being the stronger sex?

Interestingly there is nothing inherently sexist in the work place system as it exists. There is nothing biological that that makes a woman incapable of prioritizing work over family, and men are just as capable of being the primary childcare provider. The problem arises as this system intersects with our culture. Many women derive a large portion of their sense of self worth from their role as a mother. So even if they have a full time stay at home dad taking care of the child rearing they will feel enormous pressure to be more involved in raising their kids. I'm sure there are lots of women who would not be comfortable working a job that required 80hrs a week even if their husbands took care of all of the child care duties.

Of course there are lots of men that feel the same way, and would also not be comfortable working that many hours because it would take them away from their kids. It's at this point I think we start to get to the true root of the problem. This isn't actually a problem of gender. The problem is that the workaholic has a competitive advantage in the work place.

I'm all for improving the work place to make them more family friendly. Bring on paid family leave. Encourage more flexible hours. Make it possible for people to work from home. I'm for all of it. Still, despite all of that we can't get around the simple fact that the workaholic will still have a competitive advantage under the new system. Take two people of equal intelligence, skill, and experience. The one that works more will tend to get more done and will tend to be more successful. Even given unequal intelligence or ability I think we have all seen situations where hard work can make up for that deficit. Take school. There are always one or two really bright kids that just get it and breeze their way through. There are also a few kids who don't have it so easy, but by studying their ass off reach the same place and achieve the same results.

All of the proposals to increase work life balance have negatives for career advancement. Working from home? Out of sight out of mind. Ditto for flexible hours if your work hours don't correlate well with the bosses work hours. Paid family leave? A lot of industries move pretty fast these days, and a year or two out of the work force can make you very out of date. Not to mention that if the promotion happens to come up while you’re on leave, well then you've missed the boat and your career can be set back by years waiting for the next opportunity.

So I don't really think there is anything to be done about the problem of competitive advantage. It seems that this situation is a Nash equilibrium. A child raising pair that has one partner prioritize career, and the other child rearing is going to have an advantage over a pair that doesn't. One person near the top of their career path is likely to make more then two people stuck on the lower rungs. Even if the person who prioritized career doesn't make 2x non-prioritized, that person's spouse can still work at non- prioritized rate so combined they would make more.

Given these circumstances, there are three stable equilibrium that can result. One, all women prioritize child rearing, all men prioritize career. Two, the opposite in which all women prioritize career, and all men prioritize child raising. Their third is essentially the coin flip. Each could randomly decide who will be the care giver and who will prioritize career. The third one should result in a roughly 50/50 split in the work force between male and female. All three of these are equal as far as competitive advantage for selecting the optimal strategy. The only thing preferring one equilibrium over the others is cultural.

So how do you change the culture? How do you end the mommy wars? Women when looking for a mate tend to marry equals, or marry up. Men tend to marry equals or marry down (in terms of earning power.) How do you change that? A women who is the bread winner, while the husband takes care of the kids is likely to be seen as being married to a looser or a bum. Even if both know better it's hard to resist to constant societal feed back to the contrary. I know cultures can change, but time seems to be the only way.

P.S. this took a while to write, so I apologize if someone already made these points.

wait, so playing with and reading to the children didn't count in their study? Great, nice to know the countless hours I spend reading to and playing with our kids don't count as child-rearing.

"but some of it breaks down simply to 'kids take a lot of energy and my wife has a lot more energy and endurance than I do'.

How much of 'women doing more of the work' is simply a function of, stereotypes aside, women being the stronger sex?"

I don't think this is it, at least with respect to child-rearing. My wife provides primary child care for about 45 minutes a day on weekdays, and maybe 2 hours on the weekend. I provide primary childcare for about 1.5 hours a day on weekdays, and maybe 15 hours on the weekend. She is far more exhausted by her efforts than I am by mine.

I think the reason is that I am far more tempermentally suited to taking care of a small child -- I am a lot more laid-back with a good bit more patience, a much more controlled temper, and much more tolerance for mess and disorder. I also enjoy spending time with our daughter more than she does (and she'll be the first to admit it -- we both agree that our daughter has a lot of her mother's personality, which is great for me (I chose to marry someone with that personality), but not so much for her).

Remember all--the plural of anecdote is data! The guy who "does the gutters" is also a super dad, so that just proves that all those unmarried lesbo "women's studies" bitchez are slanting the studies against men.

Look, file this whole thing under "duh." I know some fabulous stay at home dads, and I am actually in a wonderful traditional marriage in which my spouse works outside the home and I do the lions share of the child care (and everything else from yard work to you name it) because *modern work* doesn't leave a lot of the flexibility that children actually require.

Its not the fault of working parents that industrialized, out of the household work is very rigid and doesn't mesh well with sick children or eldercare. But its a fact of the system. The working women that I know, and I know plenty, rely on an extended set of relationships with other women and care providers to pick up the slack in dealing with their children's illnesses and activities. Very few of them call the male spouse for a favor or a shared ride. There a gazillion ways that women are still expected to manage the family schedule, the doctors appoitnments, hair cuts, emergencies, bill paying, shopping, kin relations (parties for in laws? tributes to parents? eldercare). This doesn't begin to get covered when two people sit down and divvy up the jobs and "playing with the kid on the weekend" doesn't begin to describe it.

Look, the study is the study is the study. It simply reflects stuff that students of this subject have been seeing and analyzing for years--from World's of Pain to The SEcond Shift. Why the shock and horror? We know this shit already, its not really up for grabs or challenge on a society wide level.

to the MRA's on the thread (mercifully few) who get all up in hysterics that their patriarchal contribution hasn't been recognized as equal to or superior to their wives--who cares what your problems are? The facts have been in for some time--the big societal shift towards forcing (white, middle class) women into the work world was accompanied by an overwhelming growth of the work expected from women as wives and mothers. Feminism and their own feelings of dissapointment in their own fathers has enabled a lot of guys to do way more at home and with their children than their fathers ever dreamed of. yay? I mean--Yay! But its a new truism that men look at what they are doing and rightly say they excell their father's contributions and feel good about it. While women look at the total situation they are in and feel like they are failing everyone's expectations as they try to add new duties onto the unyielding expectations of household management and child rearing.

aimai

Once again, children ruin everything.

Ask yourself how many female Ferran Adrias, Thomas Kellers, or Joel Robuchons have chosen a different path -- say, catering or opening a bakeshop -- because it seems more family friendly?

You look at someone like Gordon Ramsay, who among top British chefs has done most to bring women through the ranks. Except Angela Hartnett has had to put off family for her job, while Ramsay himself dumped off childcare duties to his wife, to the point of missing one child's birthday party while being filmed for TV.

Cooking is a bad example in every extreme, however. I didn't pursue a culinary career almost entirely because of the hours involved. The hours are atrocious, for a man or a woman, and there is really no way to fix the problem. I don't think you want to put this particular profession in the forefront when discussing this issue.

Winer: a study came out recently (I think I saw it on Yglesias' site) that showed that same-sex couples are much more egalitarian.
Parthenon: you're responding to right-wing internalized US bias. Of course something can be done about this: provide more child care! Low-cost, high-quality care is the norm in Europe, and women's salaries there are nearly the same as men's.

Also, as Ms. Goldstein pointed out in her post, these problems are much, much more serious for single parents, the overwhelming majority of whom are female.

“The bottom line is our society does not yet provide women in the workplace with the type of social supports, like high-quality subsidized child care…”

And who is supposed to do all this subsidizing? We have subsidized housing, nourishment, day care, education, job training, transportation, healthcare, retirement, on and on. At some point is it not fair to expect people to provide for themselves? Or, god forbid, maybe take some responsibility and plan their life? How about waiting to have kids after you’re trained in your field and can afford them? In the progressive mind is there anything in life that shouldn’t be subsidized?

In the progressive mind is there anything in life that shouldn’t be subsidized?

Me!

I think that all the Anons make a good point: don't give your name if you are saying something dumb.

Since when does cleaning gutters one weekend a year compare to doing the dishes and making dinner every single day of the week? And shopping ? And planning the meals? So what if you get stuck with that chore? You managed to offload all the other drudgery onto your wife...and no, mowing the lawn every other week, taking the car in to be serviced once every three months and putting your laundry into the laundry basket don't add up to all the other chores done by your wife THAT YOU DON"T EVEN KNOW SHE IS DOING because she has done it so long without saying a word. So you can play for a few hours with your kids ont he weekend without having to do the boring stuff.

Yes, women need to grit their teeth when their spouses change the diapers (my husband pinned his tie to the diapers a few times), feed the baby or dress it up. However, men who are clueless have to climb off their high horse when their wife points out how to do a task. And no, you don't get to do a bad job just because she is being picky and she should relax her standards. Would you allow her to relax our standards when it comes to cleaning out the gutters?

In the progressive mind is there anything in life that shouldn’t be subsidized?

Work. Given all of the positive externalities it's baffling why the Ezra Kleins aren't attacking consumption and leisure while promoting work with a negative income tax. Perhaps they realize that most people don't want to live in a 1984 style state, although they don't mind using a little mob rule here and there to increase their wealth.

Perhaps they realize that most people don't want to live in a 1984 style state

That's amusing, given your nym and apparent desire to have people to live in a genuine 1984-style state. No thanks, Gecks.

Funny how you equate taking care of children with 'work', when in fact it is a labor of love. You seem to consider spending time with your children to be a negative, when having the most time with your children is one of life's greatest joys.

It is a terrible attitude to have to consider child rearing as a part of your life you would want other's to do for you, rather then a huge part of the joy of life.
When your older, you will regret the time you spent at work and the time lost seeing your children grow.

But I guess some people view the world differently, they view children as a burden and a hindrance to their preferred lifestyle.
Those people should not be having children:

"""I don't want them punished with a baby.""

Barack Obama, March 2008

Speaking of a 1984-style state, one of the more positive things (or perhaps the only one) about the old East German state was that nearly every work place was required to have a child care center. I had a friend who grew up in the DDR whose mom was a factory worker and she went to the factory kiddie center every working day.

Another foreign model to look at is Sweeden where you get extensive paid family leave for the period when the mom really has to take a big share of the baby work Of course dads get a big chunk too.

Actually, in Sweden there's been a big debate for ages whether we should split the maternity leave (here it's called parents' leave, about 15 months paid almost in ful)l- evenly between both parents. More and more dads stay at home for at least six months with their babies - my male friends wh have kids would never let their girlfriends/wives use up the whole time. We also have a heavily subsidized child care system - all children are entitled to a place in preschool. Still, women earn less than men for the same jobs, and women still get stuck with most of the household work. You can only do so much with progressive policies.

My family is kind of an outlier. My husband and I both make about the same amount of money (not a lot - we joke that we can never get divorced because neither of us could afford to rent an apartment or buy a house on our individual salaries) - but we work different shifts, which makes him the primary caretaker for our child. He's home during the day, he sleeps off the night shift while she's in school, and he's there when she gets home.

I do all the shopping and cooking, both chores that I enjoy and he hates. He does the laundry and we split the general housekeeping.

This is one of those areas where people in the middle really get squished. When my husband and I were first married and poor, with an infant at home, one of us stayed home, because we couldn't afford childcare - it was way out of our range. I stayed home for a year (because he made more money and I was breastfeeding), and then we switched.

If we had an infant now, we would be in dire straits, because we couldn't afford our mortgage if we weren't both working, but childcare would take up a significant amount of our income.

On the other end, I know people who can afford to make the choice to have a parent stay home. My sister-in-law gave up a lucrative career to stay home with her kids, which she could afford to do because her husband makes six figures. They never lived extravagently before kids, and they haven't really had to give up much for her to stay home.

Sweetie's comment at 5:12 reminds us once again that conservatives can't tell the difference between what is voluntary and consensual and what is assault. Just like "waterboarding" and torture are "just like (voluntary) frat boy hijinks" so having a child that you don't want makes you a frigid, horrible, bitch of a person who doesn't deserve to have children when you do want. Or something?

I have some news for you sweetie you phony woman--hell, you phony human being--children are work--families are work, elderly parents are work and marriage is work. Even though it is work we may choose to do, joyfully, wholeheartedly, at great personal cost it is still work and it actually takes a whole lot of time, energy, and talent. It has its rewards--it also has its agonies. Ever tried parenting a child with severe disabilities? Or nursing an alzheimer's patient as they decline and die? Or just getting food on the table over and over again while still juggling jobs and skinned knees and republican economic disasters?

fuck you and your faux sentimentality. The kindness and thoughtfullness you can't spare for other people's perspectives must also be in short supply when you deal with your own spouse and children. Its probably useless to remind you that one of the things that feminism was a reaction against was the insistence that what was sauce for the goose wasn't sauce for the gander-that all this worship of the perfect family and perfect mother love dropped out of the picture when daddy decided to take his job skills and his income to a new trophy wife. Its women whose children were no longer toddlers and whose husband's left them for greener pastures who went back to the work world in droves and figured out that the system wasn't working for them or their daughters and sons.

aimai

Faux "Sweetie" won't give you the full context of Obama's remark. Here it is, via Ben Smith at Politico. Obama was asked a question about about reproductive rights.

"This is a very difficult issue, and I understand sort of the passions on both sides of the issue," he said. "I have two precious daughters — they are miracles."

But politicians must trust women to make the right decisions for themselves, he said.

"This is an example where good people can disagree," the Illinois senator said. "The question then is, are there areas that we can agree to that everybody can get behind? We can all agree that we want to reduce teen pregnancies. We can all agree that we want to make sure that adoption is a viable option."

The exchange appeared to be prompted by Obama's earlier comments that he does not favor abstinence-only education, but rather comprehensive sexual education that includes information on abstinence and birth control.

"Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old," he said. "I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information."

"Child care" as defined by the study must leave out a huge amount of child care. Look at the hours - they total to 14 / week. That's like one Saturday in my house. What family engages in 2 hours/day of child care?

One is right to wonder what the relative hours would have been had they included everything else.

Furthermore, in many, if not most, two income families, the man works a lot more hours. For example, the independent lawyer whose wife is a part-time tax accountant who live down the street from me... if they switched jobs, one suspects the amount of child care each provide would change too.

Sure, John, "one suspects." But that suspicion would be wrong. The Times Magazine had a lengthy article about equal parenting this past weekend. The studies are definitive. No matter how you slice it, no matter how many hours men and women work outside the home, women spend more time than men doing all kinds of chores and child-rearing.

Lastly, it's patently ridiculous to assert that reading to and playing with children is "work" in the same way that feeding, bathing, and picking up after them is.