Mom, dad both work in nearly half of two-parent families: US study

41% of working mothers say being a parent has hampered their career advancement

WASHINGTON: Both parents in nearly half of all two-parent families in the United States work outside the home, creating a better financial cushion but a sometimes precarious work-life balance, a new study found.

"As more mothers have entered the US workforce in the past several decades, the share of two-parent households in which both parents work full time now stands at 46 percent, up from 31 percent in 1970," said the study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.



In terms of their financial wellbeing, families with two full-time working parents are better off, with a median household income of $102,400 compared with $84,000 for households where the father works full-time and the mother works part-time.

In households where the father is the sole breadwinner, the average income is $55,000.

Despite greater financial freedoms, the Pew Center found that 56 percent of all working parents say that the work-parenting balancing act can be difficult to manage.

Forty-one percent of working mothers said that being a parent has hampered their career advancement, while just 20 percent of working fathers said the same.



And in households where both parents work full time, many couples also said a large share of day-to-day parenting responsibilities falls to the mother.

The poll, conducted from September 15 to October 13, queried 1,807 Americans with children younger than 18.