‘Daughters of Working Mothers Get Better Jobs’ – Study

Mothers who feel guilty for leaving their children at home while working may not have to feel that way anymore as they could be helping their children especially their daughters get better jobs.

A Harvard University study has shown that adult daughters of working mums tend to get better jobs and pay than daughters of stay at home mums.

This effect was particularly pronounced in Britain and the US, the study, based on data from 24 countries, found.

Data from the International Social Survey Programme from 2002 and 2012, concluded that daughters of working mothers were paid 4% more than their peers.

They also found one in three daughters of working mothers were in managerial posts, compared with one in four of those of stay-at-home mothers.

It found no links between maternal employment and adult sons’ working patterns.

However, sons of working mothers tended to “spend more time caring for family members than adult sons of stay-at-home mothers”.

The study concluded: “Women across the world have increasingly entered the paid workforce, but the parallel increase in men’s contributions to unpaid work within households lags behind. Women’s entrenched responsibilities for household work constrain their choices in the public sphere.

“Men also bear costs from the unequal distribution of household responsibilities; gendered practices and norms in public and private spheres act as barriers to men who want to take on bigger roles at home.”

Source: BBC