March 27, 2009

Women under 29 just as likely as men to want jobs with more responsibility

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Maybe we didn't need a study to tell us this. But now the Families and Work Institute has proof.

The 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce that the Institute released last week found that for the first time in the past 30+ years, women under age 29 "want just as much to advance to jobs with more responsibility" as their male counterparts.

According to the Institute, "In 1992, 80% of men and 72% of women under the age of 29 wanted jobs with greater responsibility. Today the figure is 67% of men and 66% of women."
The study (available by PDF), which is based on a survey of 3,500 U.S. workers, turned up a number of other interesting findings:

1. Women under age 29 aren't letting motherhood stand in the way of or drastically alter their career aspirations.

2. In two-earner households, women contribute an average of 44% of the annual income (up from 39% in 1997). What's more, 26% of women in dual-income households earn at least 10% more than their partner (up from 15% of women in 1997).

3. Employed dads under age 29 spend more time with their young kids during the workweek than they did three decades ago: In 1977, dads under age 29 spent an average of 2.4 hours each workday with children under age 13; today that figure is 4.3 hours. Okay, that probably doesn't come as any shock. But it is interesting that the numbers haven't changed much for working moms under age 29: In 1977, they spent roughly 4.5 hours with their young kids each workday; today that figure is 5.0 hours.

4. Curiously, there's a bit of a perception gap among the genders about how much time dads spend caring for their young kids: In 2008, 31% of women credited their male partner with taking "as much or more responsibility for the care of their children as they were" -- up from 21% in 1992. But 49% of dads surveyed in 2008 said they were pulling the parental shift as much as or more than their female partner.

5. Of course, being more of a hands-on parent can have its drawbacks: 59% of dads in two-income households said they experienced a fair amount of work/life conflict in 2008, up from 35% in 1977. Since working moms got a running start on the work/life juggling act, the number of women who said they were a bit off-balance hasn't increased much in the past three decades: 41% reported some work/life conflict in 1977; 45% did in 2008.

Interesting stuff, indeed. Still, I would have liked to have seen some statistics on the number of young workers making the decision to bypass the traditional, nuclear family route altogether in the name of work/life balance (or even just financial balance). Or how all this information skews for same-sex couples. After all, a significant amount of the country isn't straight, married, and/or raising kids.

Michelle Goodman is the author of "My So-Called Freelance Life" and "The Anti 9-to-5 Guide." E-mail Michelle at mgoodman@nwjobs.com

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