Couldn’t find a study which eliminated financial necessity/security, unfortunately. Google Scholar is worse than useless (or else I suck at formulating searches on this matter), and Google mostly brings up links to the increasing number of stay-at-home-dads (in our current economy, who is surprised?).
College educated women are more likely to want to work outside the home—perhaps women who can get more interesting/responsible jobs prefer that to looking after children. Women’s preferences here may be to do with many low skill jobs being incredibly boring.
Would also like to find out how the figures vary between countries that make it easy for mothers to work (eg Sweden) and countries that make it harder for women to work (eg the US).
What makes you think the US makes it harder for women to work? (Apart from the fact that we don’t pass laws penalizing men for not taking [edited for accuracy—previously wrote one year, which apparently was only under consideration and not passed—not sure about the status of the alternatives of six months and three months which have more popularity] two months of paternity leave when children are born, I mean, which sounds to me like something out of a Vonnegut dystopia.)
It is easier for mothers to work in Sweden than in the US due to more childcare provision, more maternity leave etc. I’m not arguing that it’s good that the state should make it easier for mothers to work,* but they certainly do make it easier.
*I do think that that’s the case, but I’d rather not have an argument about that right now.
If you discard financial necessity / security as a reason, how many men want to work?
http://www.gallup.com/poll/157313/half-women-prefer-job-outside-home.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Business ← This doesn’t satisfy my necessity/security criteria (and why the hell are the statistics -weighted-?), but suggests that men may be less likely than women to prefer to stay at home.
Couldn’t find a study which eliminated financial necessity/security, unfortunately. Google Scholar is worse than useless (or else I suck at formulating searches on this matter), and Google mostly brings up links to the increasing number of stay-at-home-dads (in our current economy, who is surprised?).
College educated women are more likely to want to work outside the home—perhaps women who can get more interesting/responsible jobs prefer that to looking after children. Women’s preferences here may be to do with many low skill jobs being incredibly boring.
Perhaps also college educated women have a selection bias in favor of women who want to work outside the home.
Wish I could find better data on these things.
Would also like to find out how the figures vary between countries that make it easy for mothers to work (eg Sweden) and countries that make it harder for women to work (eg the US).
What makes you think the US makes it harder for women to work? (Apart from the fact that we don’t pass laws penalizing men for not taking [edited for accuracy—previously wrote one year, which apparently was only under consideration and not passed—not sure about the status of the alternatives of six months and three months which have more popularity] two months of paternity leave when children are born, I mean, which sounds to me like something out of a Vonnegut dystopia.)
It is easier for mothers to work in Sweden than in the US due to more childcare provision, more maternity leave etc. I’m not arguing that it’s good that the state should make it easier for mothers to work,* but they certainly do make it easier.
*I do think that that’s the case, but I’d rather not have an argument about that right now.