Americans value equality at work .... not so much at home
Americans have grown increasingly likely to believe that women and men should have equal roles at work, in politics and at home. But a significant share still say that men’s and women’s roles should be different at home — even when they believe they should be equal at work.
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Americans have grown more egalitarian over the last four decades, the study found, and people in each generation also seem to become more egalitarian over time.
Yet some researchers were surprised that millennials weren’t more egalitarian. Other recent research has found that young people are falling back on traditional gender roles more than expected. Even millennials who want to share earning and domestic responsibilities equally with their partners end up dividing labor more traditionally after they have children. The share of women working has leveled off, and the gender pay gap has not shrunk significantly.
Researchers said one big reason is that workplace and government policies are still set up for a time when men were breadwinners and women stayed at home. Paid family leave, subsidized child care and flexible schedules are not widespread.
In a study of the relative happiness of people with children versus those without, American parents stood out among the 22 English-speaking and European countries surveyed as the most unhappy when compared with nonparents. The researchers found that it was entirely explained by the absence of family-friendly policies in the United States. In countries that had such policies, there was no happiness gap between parents and nonparents.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/upshot/americans-value-equality-at-work-more-than-equality-at-home.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_up_20181203&nl=upshot&nl_art=1&nlid=74838209emc%3Dedit_up_20181203&ref=headline&te=1
********* Makes perfect sense to me .... When there's no child care available, or child care is ridiculously expensive, it forces most couples to make the choice of who stays home with the kids, and that usually ends up being the woman. Also, when there's no paid family leave for new parents, and parents have to take the least time off possible after the birth of a child in order not to lose that paycheck, that causes catastrophic stress and unhappiness being a new parent. It's just lose-lose all around. Why can't America "get with it" like most other countries do and support working families? I think many old school Republican males like that privelege of being the big bad breadwinner and having the dinner ready when they come home from work and the house taken care of and the kids being raised .... and they're just not ready to give that up so women can be their equals. Just my two cents...... We need more women making laws! I know if Hillary had been president, this issue would have been addressed.
