New Report Shows the Powerful Effect of Working Moms
New Report Shows the Powerful Effect of Working Moms
Want girls to grow up and be successful in the workplace? Support their working mothers.
According to a report released last month, working mothers have an extremely positive impact on their children’s future well-being—particularly their daughters.
The study, published through Harvard Business School, found that maternal employment had a direct effect on gender role models in the home and gender equality later in life.
Using data from the International Social Survey Programme, researchers found that “female respondents raised by a mother who worked outside the home are [4.5 percent] more likely to be employed, [19 percent] more likely to hold supervisory responsibility if employed, work more hours, and earn higher hourly wages than women whose mothers were home full-time.”
When it comes to mother-son relationships, working mothers are more likely to have sons who “are more involved at home as adults, spending more time caring for family members than men whose mothers stayed home full-time.” These findings, the authors suggest, present a “strong association between maternal employment and adult egalitarian gender attitudes.”
The study’s authors bemoan the lack of workplace policies supporting parental employment. A co-author of the study, Elizabeth Lingo, told the Ms. Blog that one of the challenges she faces as a researcher is introducing the findings of the study to people who could influence the types of legislative or corporate changes that would make an impact on working mothers’ lives.
. . . . .
http://msmagazine.com/blog/2015/07/17/new-report-shows-the-powerful-effect-of-working-moms/