In the past few weeks, there has been a low buzz in the media and in the blogosphere on work-family issues. It’s probably no accident that it’s the summer.
School’s out and families are piecing together a patchwork of activities for their kids to keep them busy. One week of basketball camp here, three weeks of town recreation there, swim lessons over there with some library book club around the edges. All designed to keep the kids from gluing their fingers to wii controls for the entire summer. These plans require a color coded calendar and a deep wallet.
For those who are working, even the most carefully constructed quilt of activities is insufficient. There are open weeks in the summer and all sorts of activities that end at 3:00. I will never teach summer classes, because I will never make enough to cover the supervision for the two kids.
But, I’m lucky. I have that option to leave the summer for research. I have a flexible, part-time job. The pay is nothing to write home about and I won’t make it to Harvard by this route, but it’s something. At this stage of my kids’ life, it’s perfect for me. For part of the day, I’m doing something that I’m really good at and that stimulates my mind. And for the other half of the day, I like taking care of my high maintenance kids without the stress that someone else is screwing it up. My youngest one is still not easy to manage. He screams a lot less than he used to, but for some reason, his OCD stuff is really flaring up this summer. I can’t trust that a non-blood relative will be nice to him. He also needs me to translate.
Ever since I started this blog four years ago (yikes! has it been that long?), I have been shouting that women want part time work. Until schools are open 12 months a year and a full time job shrinks down to 35 hours, women want part time work.
A recent poll in the Pew Foundation found that 60% of working moms would prefer to be working part time or not at all. At someone in the field here hashing things over with moms in the school parking lots, this finding is a bit of a "no-duh" for me, but apparently it has taken some others by surprise.
This poll has led to some interesting discussions, such as why aren’t there more part time jobs and what would happen to feminist goals if more women moved to part time work.
Judith Warner writes that part time jobs pay too poorly for women to accept them and discusses the reluctance of feminists to endorse part-time work. "Feminists have long been leery of part-time work policies, which tend
to be disproportionately used by women, mommy-tracking them and placing
them at an economic disadvantage within their marriages and in society.
The American model of work-it-out-for-yourself employment is Darwinian,
but women’s long working hours have gone a long way toward helping them
advance up the career ladder." Ingrid Robeyns writes about part time work in Europe.
We need more part time work now. Until tax adverse Americans agree to fund the schools for 12 months a year, until the full time hours become more manageable, until childcare becomes better qualities and cheaper, we need part time work. I can’t think about the the long term goals of feminism when women are drowning in responsibility. Even if we had the work utopia, there would still be a certain number of women who prefer being with their kids to any full time job.
Something’s gotta give. If feminists don’t want to push for more part time labor, then I want to see them head to head with the teachers union in Washington demanding a 12 month year.
Apt. 11d 
You wrote: “Ever since I started this blog four years ago (yikes! has it been that long?), I have been shouting that women want part time work. Until schools are open 12 months a year and a full time job shrinks down to 35 hours, women want part time work.”
I’m 100% behind this so long as it reads this way:
“Ever since I started this blog four years ago (yikes! has it been that long?), I have been shouting that people want part time work. Until schools are open 12 months a year and a full time job shrinks down to 35 hours, people want part time work.”
My husband often talks about how people should have more vacation and more part-time work. When we were in NY in the late 90s, he switched from full-time work to freelancing because he liked the flexibility (and the dot-com boom made it easy–my husband does graphic/web stuff, and freelancers were much in demand).
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I read Judith Warner’s piece and was hoping you’d comment on it. I just negotiated for flex time to come home two days a week in time to meet my oldest. He is theoretically old enough (12) to take care of himself, but my thought has always been that the pre-teen/teen years is a time to give them a little more attention. I just want to be there to make sure he focuses on his homework, does a few chores around the house, etc. before he heads off to play basketball or “glues the wii remote” to his hand. I don’t want to be a helicopter parent; I just want him to know that I’m there to help and well, supervise.
If I could do what I do now and get paid, say, 7/8 of my salary and work 20 hours a week, I think I’d do it. Maybe I’d even have time to write a book.
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I wonder if the moms who want part-time jobs are figuring that they’ll get the flexibility to deal with the inevitable daycare timeline shortfalls and sick kids. I’m not so sure — too many of my friends who have part-time work outside of academe are being driven mad by their inflexible work schedules and having to quit those jobs or bring in babysitters to cover the hours which wipes out all their earnings.
What I’d like to see, for one small start, are summer daycares and daycamps that actually cover the times ordinary people work. Youngest’s two weeks of respite camp would take kids as early as 8 and keep them until almost five which is impressive compared to this week’s city-funded camp that runs from 9-3.
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I am with you on the part time work, but 12 months of school would be a nightmare for me. My kid needs the 2-3 months off from the stress of school. She is bright, but not a natural student, and also has learning disabilities. The summer gives her an extended time to destress and laze in the hammock- as well as pursue other interests (organic gardening, learning to sew, improving her sketching) that she has limited time for during the school year. For us, the summer vacation is a welcome respite that just doesn’t happen during the week long school year vacations.
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I hear you, Chris. The summer break from school is a good thing. It’s a chance to get away from schedules and to tromp about outside. However, summer break becomes a nightmare for families with two working parents. And even most part time jobs don’t allow for three months off.
If the goal is to have more opportunities to work, then either schools or work are going to have to change their hours. Perhaps there can be an optional three months of school. Or 9-5 day camps like Ancarett proposes.
Wendy, yeah. That sentence should be gender neutral. I got on the woman thing because the survey was only given to women. I have to go read the original report to find out why they didn’t survey men.
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The American model of work-it-out-for-yourself employment is Darwinian, but women’s long working hours have gone a long way toward helping them advance up the career ladder.
Long hours were instrumental in my career advancement, and my observation is that this is the case for many higher-paying jobs.
Putting aside the instances where companies only need a particular function/expertise on a part-time basis, it seems that employing full-time workers holds many advantages for an employer.
Benefits, logistics, management/supervision are some issues that come to mind. This may sound callous, but my own experience in managing people led me to appreciate the value of full-time workers whose childcare issues did not interfere with their job performance. (“Can you make the 4 o’clock client meeting tomorrow? Uh, oh yeah, I forgot, you’re not here on Wednesday afternoons. I’ll get John to attend. Or, maybe I’ll go.”)
I quit to stay at home full-time rather than try the part-time route. Part-time work still has its childcare challenges, and having my career sidelined due to not being on the job full-time was hard to accept. I’m lucky to have this choice.
I don’t want government mandating how many part-time workers an employer must have. I would like the market to determine that. Unfortunately, I think that probably means most competitive (i.e., higher paying) jobs will continue to be full-time.
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Of course for many people/women/mothers part-time work is not an option because of money; less than half a full-time paycheck is too little for many families.
But if we put that aside for a minute: what about the fact that one can almost never have ‘status’ and power in a part-time position? Never mind Harvard: NO tenure-track position (that I’ve ever heard of, anyway) can be held part time; no difference-maker at a business or in a public sector job works part-time hours. So is the wish for a part-time track a de facto acceptance by the women who desire it that they will matter less? Not to get all L. Hirschman on you here, I know you don’t like that… but this seems like a real problem to me.
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As I have noted before, there’s also the issue of retirees, and people with disabilities, who could benefit from part-time work. Retirees might want to phase down their working lives over the course of several years, or may even never want to retire entirely as long as they are able.
Then there are people with disabilities, especially “hidden” disabilities and ones related to fatigue and cognitive function (multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc.). Somebody with such a disability may want to work, may be better off working than collecting disability, but may not have the stamina for a full workweek. Such a person might benefit from a good part-time job or even a good 40-hour-a-week job. Part-time work is not just for parents.
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There are tenure-track part-time positions at some universities (including mine). I’ve never understood what this really meant, other than you get paid 50% of your salary.
Whether these people are ever “difference-makers” is a different question. I think, on the whole, not. There are “difference-makers” who work part-time, but not officially, and not in perpetuity. Basically, they promise to be around when something important happens. If what one wants by working part time is the option not to be around when something important is happening, it’s going to be hard to make a difference.
But, there are plenty of jobs where you don’t get to be a difference maker even if you work full time; seems like what it takes to make those jobs part time is planning (though there will be cost involved, and these costs, both in management & benefits have to be accommodated).
bj
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ooh. I have a new word. A difference-maker.
I don’t think that government needs to mandate part time work. I think that there have been obstacles put up to prevent part time work opportunities and those obstacles should be reduced.
There is absolutely a trade-off here. If you work a part-time job, you probably won’t become CEO anytime soon. You won’t be a difference-maker in the work sphere. Maybe you’ll make a difference in the home sphere though. I don’t know. Maybe you won’t be completely stressed out and miserable. Maybe with a part time job, you can keep your feet wet until you are ready to increase your hours as the kids grow.
Look, the happiest people that I’ve chatted with in the school parking lot are one where there are 1-1/2 jobs between the two parents. The half time parent can deal with the school closings and the meetings without vomiting from stress. There are so many demands on parents right now that 2 full time jobs is a very difficult proposition. To make full two full time jobs more doable, either schools, the workplace, and childcare must change. That seems like a long off goal at this point. Increasing the opportunities for part time work seems more politically feasible.
Totally agree, Allurophile. Part time work is good for a lot of people, not just parents.
Women (too bad it is mostly women) are desperate for part time work. Desperate. They are taking jobs at Pottery Barn and aides at schools just so they can be home when their kids get off the school bus. Wouldn’t it be good for businesses if they could rope in some of this brain drain? Wouldn’t it be good for parents if they had other options than hawking placemats at Pottery Barn? Wouldn’t it be good for women if they were gaining skills that could be channeled towards full time labor in the future?
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There are very real structural challenges to dealing with part-time work. Folks have mentioned health benefits as a big one. But also the tax code is written for full-timers; your workplace has to cover your set-asides up to a certain level regardless of how many hours you put in. That “up to a certain level” is key: get one employee to work 120%, and you pay one set-aside. Two employees at 60%, two set-asides, three at 40%, three set-asides. Believe me, Accounting is very aware of the dollar cost of all this.
Not to mention the whole “treat the family as an economic unit and thus put the family in higher tax bracket when both spouses keep working” approach, which also punishes part-timers by putting them in a higher bracket.
It’s no mistake that things have ended up so slanted towards full-timers. Change the incentives and I think the cultural stuff will, to a great extent, follow.
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Women (too bad it is mostly women) are desperate for part time work. Desperate. They are taking jobs at Pottery Barn and aides at schools just so they can be home when their kids get off the school bus. Wouldn’t it be good for businesses if they could rope in some of this brain drain? Wouldn’t it be good for parents if they had other options than hawking placemats at Pottery Barn? Wouldn’t it be good for women if they were gaining skills that could be channeled towards full time labor in the future?
I’m frustrated with your insistence that it is all women, women, women who must go part-time. You seem to think that change is possible in one area, but that the propensity of the woman to be the one to go part time is immutably fixed. I think Wendy has it better – and the number of men who want to spend more time with their growing kids and not be the overworked breadwinner is growing, too. Please don’t give up so easily on the idea of men sharing the load of caring for children. Consider the fact that, as with so many things, once balancing work with family becomes a man thing, the facilitations will miraculously follow! Nauseating, but highly likely, IMHO.
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