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


Afp November 06, 2015
PHOTO: AFP

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.

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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.

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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.

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