Two-thirds of stay-at-home moms contribute to household income, study says
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According to a new study by Redbook magazine, almost two-thirds of moms contribute to household income in some way and 25 percent run their own businesses from home.
For the study, 558 women who identified themselves as stay-at-home moms were asked to keep an hour-by-hour record of their daily activities and asked several questions about their lives and responsibilities.
The study also found that 10 percent of the moms reported they were extremely happy, 46 percent very happy, 34 percent somewhat happy, 8 percent slightly happy and 2 percent not happy at all. Thirty-six percent said they were staying at home because they wanted to, 15 percent because child care is too expensive, 7 percent because their career wasn’t family friendly and 6 percent because their partner wanted them to.
The study found that there appears to be four types of modern moms: the worker, the volunteer, the newbie and the caretaker.
While they all work, the worker label identifies a mom who listed part-time work as a daily responsibility and contributes to the household income. The study mentioned a mom who quit her law practice and instead created Smartcoos, an online language service for kids, while caring for her child.
The volunteer is a mom who spends a large amount of time volunteering at school or helping with other kid-related activities. Almost half of volunteer moms agree they make working moms’ lives easier.
The newbie is a mom who has at least one child under the age of 2. Newbie moms view staying at home as temporary and more than half plan to go back to work at some point in their lives.
The caretaker identifies a mom who takes care of at least one child who has special needs. These moms are more likely to be more stressed than any of the other categories.
“If more businesses could accommodate their time — say, by creating jobs that allow working 15 to 20 hours a week from home — they could capitalize on this workforce,” according to the study.
Elissa Strauss for Slate mentioned that there may be no such thing as stay-at-home moms and we should get rid of the term altogether because “it is an identity marker that deceives us into believing that there are divisions between women that just aren’t there.” She argues moms who are volunteering at schools, plan to go back to work, work from home or care for a child with special needs should not be thrown in the the stay-at-home category.
An infographic created by Coupon Box illustrated the demands of motherhood.
According to Coupon Box, stay-at-home moms average 96.4 hours of work per week to complete all of their duties — that is the equivalent to 2.4 jobs. If moms were paid for 96.4 hours of labor per week, that would equate to $119,606 per year.
Email: mmcnulty@deseretnews.com
Twitter: megchristine5
