The 'Pursuit of Happiness' Begins at Home

It’s been almost 50 years since women’s labor force participation began to dramatically increase in the United States, peaking at 60% of all women in 1999. For women ages 25-54, the age group most likely to be employed, work force participation has increased to 77 percent. Today, women make up almost half of the entire U.S. labor force, an increase from 33% in 1948. Unexpectedly, during the same time period, men’s labor force participation decreased (from 87% to 68%). Women also began surpassing men in the attainment of bachelor’s degrees starting in 1982, today earning 58% of all bachelor’s degrees and 62% of all master’s degrees. By 2005, women overtook men among the college-educated workforce. 

Women’s labor force participation is not a new phenomenon. Prior to industrialization, women worked alongside men in family farms and businesses. Female labor force participation was fundamental to survival. With industrialization, economic work moved outside the home. As work became geographically separated from home and family needs, women’s participation plummeted. And for the first time in history, rising household incomes allowed women to withdraw from economic labor and their work became defined by family consumption rather than production. 

But, as the U.S. economy moved from an industrial base rooted in manufacturing, and physical labor to one centered on white-collar and professional occupations, new opportunities for women began to unfold. By the 1970s, with contraception now widely available, and college degrees producing increased wages, women began to invest in education, delay marriage, and plan for long-term employment. Where women had once planned their education around an early exit from work when they married, they now began to plan their lives around careers. “The Quiet Revolution” described by Nobel prize winner, Claudia Goldin, with its revolutionary shift in how women thought about their lives and families was underway. Work was no longer just income; it was identity. Marriage no longer meant the end of career plans but co-existence with them. 

What Most Mothers (Still) Want

It seemed the revolution would march forward without abatement, sweeping every woman into a long-term, full-time career, while she grew her income and the GDP. Yet, amidst all of this change, one thing remained remarkably persistent. The majority of mothers with children at home, especially those with young children, continued to prefer part-time work or no work over full-time employment. Today, more than 60% of married mothers with children under age 5 want either part-time work (40%) or no employment (20%). For mothers with children under age 18, 53% still prefer part-time or no employment. Many are working far more than they wish to be. 

Persistent employment requirements remain inflexible to the realities of women’s lives and desires.

Important voices have called attention to this “stalled out” revolution, recognizing the effect of women continuing to perform more child care and household labor than men. Yet undergirding this “stall” is another undeniable reality of which women (and men) seem to be acutely aware: early relational experiences lay the foundation for a child’s entire future, and mothers are important in that process. This does not mean that mothers are the only caregiver a child can have, but babies emerge from the womb wired to look for her. From within the strength of that attachment relationship with mom, they will experience the security, identity, and relational trust needed to grow. Though the extent of care needed will shift over time, that relationship will continue to be important across development, providing the secure base for a child’s growth and thriving. Motherhood also has important implications for women’s well-being. Multiple data sources, including our recent Institute for Family Studies report, confirm that the happiest women in America today are married mothers with children. 

The Gender Pay Gap and Inflexible Work

Given this reality, it’s startling that we have not honored women’s desires and given more attention to the other side of this “stalled out” revolution: persistent employment requirements that remain inflexible to the realities of women’s lives and desires. Women have surpassed men in educational attainment and the college-educated workforce, yet workplace structures continue to remain blind to women’s (and children’s) needs by demanding long hours, constant availability, and uninterrupted careers. No wonder revisionist feminist, Jean Elshtain, would pithily reframe the touted successes brought to women: “Behold the new woman as the old man!” Rather than valuing women’s unique desires and children’s needs, women have taken on traditionally male work structures, designed without regard for those desires and needs. Claudia Goldin’s Nobel prize is the result of a critical conclusion: the biggest driver of gender inequality today is in how jobs are structured and priced. The gender pay gap persists largely because the labor market rewards inflexible, long-hour work—and women (and children), more often than men, need flexibility. In academia, tenure systems expect and reward continuous productivity in publishing and grants, resulting in fewer women holding full-professor positions. Part-time tenure-track positions are almost unheard of in the education system. In law, part-time options might exist, but they have much lower partner promotion rates and are often stigmatized while still requiring near full-time availability. In medicine, some specialties such as pediatrics, family medicine, and psychiatry, allow high flexibility where patients can be shared across doctors, and part-time work is relatively common. Other specialties such as surgery, orthopedics, and cardiology remain “greedy,” with long, unpredictable hours and high penalties for absence. 

The gender pay gap persists largely because the labor market rewards inflexible, long-hour work—and women (and children), more often than men, need flexibility.

The solution to honoring the work desires and needs of women and families clearly lies deeper than policy or education. It means a cultural reframing, beginning with women, valuing and working for the structures that honor what we value most. That will require a rethinking our current focus on creating more work-friendly families and focus more on creating more family-friendly work. The most popular article ever published by The Atlantic, by Anne-Marie Slaughter, includes this subtitle: “If we truly believe in equal opportunity for all women, here’s what has to change.” Slaughter then asserts: 

Workers who put their careers first are typically rewarded; workers who choose their families are overlooked, disbelieved, or accused of unprofessionalism. Ultimately, it is society that must change, coming to value choices to put family ahead of work just as much as those to put work ahead of family. If we really valued those choices, we would value the people who make them. 

Where the Pursuit of Happiness Begins

Most mothers and fathers would agree with Slaughter. The United States has proven itself to be incomparably strong in innovation, entrepreneurship, creativity, and invention. Surely, the most important area for the expression of those capacities is what Jefferson wrote 250 years ago—in “pursuit of happiness.” Decades of research on well-being have confirmed that strong relationships, beginning at home, provide the foundation for happiness and flourishing. In Anne-Marie Slaughter’s words, “Let us rediscover the pursuit of happiness, and let us start at home.” That includes thinking more creatively about supporting the millions of mothers we depend upon who have consistently asserted a preference for work situations that would enable them to focus on the one place where they are completely irreplaceable—their families.

Jenet Erickson is Non-resident Senior Fellow in Maternal and Child Well-Being for IFS and an associate professor in the Department of Church History and Doctrine in Religious Education at BYU.

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