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Why?
According to the study, Americans work longer hours than ever. This not only hurts women's careers, but it also widens the gender gap, threatening a resurgence of the traditional homemaker/breadwinner family structure in dual-earner households. Daddy collects the paycheck and Mommy does the dishes. The oppressed social norm that was abandoned the moment women decided to go to college and work towards a career may be making a full circle to the present. Like all bad trends, this one is coming back.
The study, presented August 1 at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting in Boston, found that husbands who worked long hours are more likely to entice a woman to quit her job. Youngjoo Cha, a Cornell doctoral candidate in sociology working towards her Ph.D conducted the study originally while researching the earning scale between men and women.
"I wanted to know what drives this trend, that the earning scale helps men more than women," said Cha. "This communication is commonly happening in the upper part of the labor market. I realized that this kind of norm - working long hours - has been increasingly common in the United States. It seems like it's a gender neutral process because it applies for both men and women working long hours at work. You are considered to be a more committed worker than a competent worker. The women, however, are less likely to bring longer hours at work so therefore, it's not a gender neutral process because women are expected to take care of children, cook, and clean."
Cha found that the phenomenon occurs among women of all occupations, but is strongest among professional women with children. Cha analyzed data from the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau to determine the impact of longer work hours on the household. Cha found that women whose husbands worked more than 60 hours per week were 44% more likely - professional women 52% more likely - to quit their jobs, compared with women who have similar characteristics, but whose husbands do not put in overtime. Professional women with children whose husbands work long hours were 90% more likely to quit their jobs than childless women whose husbands did not work long hours.
What about Ithaca? While Cha doesn't have any scientific evidence to support a study that's strictly in reference to Ithaca, there is enough information about the fact that Ithaca is a college town with an abundance of couples who work in higher education as well as other high-end careers that feel the strain. Since Ithaca is an academic community, many spouses are either students and/or professors with a traveling spouse in tow. Some have children, some do not. According to Cha, the overwork norm is more prominent in high-end careers, like education and other careers seen in Ithaca, in which academic couples and professional workers not only put in longer hours, but are also geographically very isolated.
"I think the career prioritization is more prominent when the geography is more isolated," said Cha. "Because people make career decisions when they are moving and/or relocating their job. Moving for two careers is difficult."
Cha explained that the likelihood of experiencing conflict between work and family is high with couples that work long hours. Having to manage family life while compromising work commitments contributes to longer hours on the job, explained Cha.
"Especially in the American market, there are not many options because the work place is less likely to provide flexible work hours. The couple at some point is likely to compromise in their career. In that sense America is actually universal to other cultural contexts. Men's careers are considered to be more important; women are more likely to restructure their careers than men. That is how this is happening in the household."
If this is the new "norm" then let's hope it doesn't last long or is just a blip on the gender screen. Are women really on their way back to the kitchen instead of staying put on the masthead? Men don't necessarily wear the pants. Strollers are unisex. The office should be, too.
