Women "Happier as Homemakers" BS: Time to Recheck the Data

[Triana]

Women Happier as Homemakers? Time to Recheck Data

Run Date: 03/22/06
By Rivers and Barnett
WeNews commentators

A recent study bandied about in the news media finds women are more happily married when their husbands win the bread. The finding is so different from related research that our commentators call it an "outlier" not to be trusted.

...

Here We Go Again

Here we go again. Last November in this column we looked at the weak data behind a media outburst about men not liking smart women. Before that we looked at all the guff about women at elite universities wanting to just say no to careers.

Meanwhile, we seem to have the ongoing job of reminding the other news media that despite its devotion to the idea that the male of the species is an unregenerate chore boor, the actual research shows him helping out more and more around the house. Now some in the news media are once again latching on to a flawed study offering bad news for ambitious women.

Published this month in the sociology journal Social Forces (University of North Carolina), the study by W. Bradford Wilcox and Steven Nock of the University of Virginia is based on data from studies in the early 1990s.

The findings are so atypical that the study is what's called an "outlier." As columnist Ellen Goodman reports, when sociologist Scott Coltrane of the University of California-Riverside used the same data set, he found no difference in marital happiness between homemakers and working women.

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Failing Marriages an Indicator

The divorce rate is another important indicator.

Do working women's marriages fail at a higher rate than those of homemakers? No. In fact, as University of Michigan sociologist Hiromi Ono found in 1998, a woman is more likely to divorce if she has no earnings than if she does in fact earn money. Other researchers find that the higher the household income--whatever the source--the higher the quality of family life and marriage.

...

In the 1990s, the gap between husbands' and wives' earnings began to narrow. At the same time the divorce rate--which had been on the increase--leveled off. If Wilcox and Nock were correct, and women naturally yearn for male breadwinners, we should be seeing an increase in divorce as women earn more than their husbands. But no such trend exists.

In a 2001 analysis of data from our own study of 300 dual-earner couples, funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health, wives' earnings--whether higher, lower or the same as their husbands'--had no effect on their marital happiness. (And, for the most part, men's marital happiness was unrelated to how much their wives earned.)

MUCH MORE:

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=2678

[Warpy]

1. This sounds horribly familiar

Let me explain. Both my grandmother and my mother were compulsive article clippers and scrapbook savers. I have some of their output, but not all. I did read it all when I was a kid, though, and this article has a familiar tone to it.

At the end of WWII, women who had entered the workforce doing "male" jobs were suddenly given pink slips, their jobs destined for men returning home from the war. To make the transition easier, the media were full of chipper articles that burbled about how wonderful it would be for them to assume their proper role of unpaid domestic servant, far away from the crass and grubby world of working for money.

Magazines and newspapers were stuffed full of elaborate recipes that took cheap ingredients and put them together in forms that would take all day to cook (slow food, anyone?), patterns for homemade clothing and kint goods, and patterns for embroidering sheets and pillowcases.

Some right wing wonk in Washington has mustered the media troops again and issued orders that women must be propagandized into leaving the workforce to make room for men who "need" the jobs more. We've seen this play before. We know how it ends.

[Triana]

5. I think this is what happened when the dot-com bust happened...

...many females in IT and programming and in tech were the first to get cut - and many were not hired back when the few jobs that returned opened up again. Men were hired instead. It's always the females that get to go first because they "don't need to work" - even if they were single or single mothers. (?!)

Anyway the whole idea - particularly under the regressive mysogenist regime in Washington - is (once again) to get them wimmin back HOME doing church, children, and kitchen duty and get them OUT of the workplace.

[lukasahero]

7. That hasn't really been my experience

Actually, it's been just the opposite - I was, of course, making less than my male counterparts in IT when the bust hit and it has been easier for me to find work without taking a huge salary cut as result getting back in.

The fact is there have never been as many women in programming and tech support as there have been in analysis and management. So when middle management is cut, it looks like women are being cut first but it's actually the management that's getting hit.

Back to the article I swear sometimes I hate these people. It might surprise them to know that I absolutely LOVE my job. I would kill myself if I was forced to stay home, have children and keep house. This whole subject just pisses me off... Sorry for the rant... :mad:

[Triana]

8. Rant on!

Good points about programming/tech support vs management/analysis. And a good point about making less than the guys - I guess that's one advantage to being underpaid for the same job - doesn't hurt as much when you have to take cuts as they send our jobs to India or wherever. Still should be NO gap there but I digress...

No apology necessary! Lots of people would go nuts sitting at home for very long. That's why folks don't stay retired sometimes - drives them crazy! And they're not all women either - that's what's so obvious and maddening about these attempts to pidgeonhole women in the home. It's a sexual stereotype and yet another attempt to control women's lives (and men's in some cases) and their choices. These mysogenists are control freaks!

[jmm]

12. Your post reminded me of a story my mom once told me

Soon after my parent's broke up she applied for a job at a well known restaurant in Boston and was interviewed by the owner. He seemed pretty impressed by her qualifications but asked why she hadn't worked in a number of years. She told him that she had two young kids. He said she couldn't work for him because she needed to take care of us. She replied,"That's why I want this job, so I can take care of them."

She didn't get the job and I've never eaten there, despite all the good things I've heard about the place.

[atommom]

10. Very interesting take on it. I've been seeing more and more of these

annoying articles lately, but I hadn't made the connection. It does make perfect sense, and it has the bonus of fitting right in with the RW's turn-back-the-clock agenda.

[Katherine Brengle]

2. Ick...

Add to my general pissed-offness the fact that I am watching Who's The Boss, and it's almost comical!

Of course, it annoys me that Tony is painted as a completely emasculated (as far as the larger social order is concerned) man in order to make the story-line feasible for the male audience--ew.

Anyway, as a woman who is currently not working outside the home, I feel the need to comment on this.

Most women who are at home are doing so because they have children and want to give them time--most of them would never NEVER admit being less happy than when they were working outside the home--the feelings of guilt and shame associated with this are unimaginable.

Personally, in some ways I am happier than I was when I was working. My job sucked (I was working in a crappy restaurant). Of course, sometimes I feel like what I am doing is worthless (even though I know that it is not) because I am not making any money, and this makes me very UNhappy.

In the end, a decision to have a family and stay home with that family, if it is a woman's honest personal decision, should make her happy. A choice to have a family and work at the same time, if it is an educated and well-reasoned decision, should make her happy. A choice to forego having children or getting married, if it is truly a decision, should make her happy.

This is why we need to have choices--otherwise, some of us will be happy because we will be doing what we would have chosen to do anyway, and the rest of us will be miserable because we have been pigeonholed in a way that makes us unhappy.

[Triana]

4. Operative word: pidgeonholed...that's what I think the propagandizers...

...are trying to do to women now - pidgeonhole them into being 'homemakers'. If that's what they want, fine, but citing "research" that they're happier that way (bogus research that contradicts so much other research already done) is just crap. SOME women may be, OTHERS may not be. But there has never been any huge red flag in any of this that indicates that women as a whole group all want to stay home - at least not any more than many MEN do!

To make such an assertion is rediculous. Many MEN would like to stay home too but that isn't an option for them - they get called lazy, etc. - even when their wives agreed to the arrangement and they become stay-at-home Dads. But when a woman does it, it's OK. (say WHAT?)

[StellaBlue]

3. Well, I WOULD be happier as a homemaker

But then so would most of the men I know. My homemaking daydream doesn't involve kids, vaccuuming in heels, or a suit as a husband, though. ;)

[Triana]

6. Nothing wrong with it...

..and it's a good point about men. Most of them'd like to stay home too! I've known a few homemaking stay-at-home guys. Nothing wrong with that either! As long as everyone's happy with it.

[geniph]

9. I'd be a hell of a lot happier as a millionaire layabout, too

Where's all the articles about that societal trend? I'll bet a lot of us say we'd be a lot happier if we had enough money to quit work and never worry about money again. No, DUH.

[NMMNG]

11. Here it is, sort of

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=341&topic_id=6461&mesg_id=6461


The new trend is for women to want to sit around and have a man take care of her, blah blah blah. :eyes:

[geniph]

13. I notice they never do articles on the MEN who feel the same way...

...and there most definitely ARE men who'd like to have wealthy wives so they could stay home and putter about, or travel the world, or otherwise do what they like with their lives instead of being corporate drones.

[Triana]

14. I know a few men who USE women just for their money......

...so they (the guys) can have the easy life. Women are NOT the only golddiggers out there contrary to mysogenist propaganda.

[NMMNG]

15. Of course not

It's always about bashing women. Always. :eyes: