More US women swapping office satchels for diaper bags

WASHINGTON - More and more American women are swapping briefcases and office suits for dungarees and diaper bags as they opt to stay home and raise children, putting the brakes on decades of female advances in the workplace.

For the first time in the post-feminist era, the number of working women has begun to retreat, with even graduates from prestigious universities giving up promising careers for old-fashioned domesticity.

‘Total 180!’

A new magazine launched in California has seized on the trend: the cover of “Total 180!” shows a slender, radiant woman balancing her daughter on one hip as she tosses her briefcase into the trash.

“With practical information that validates, supports, and reassures their lifestyle, Total 180! is the sustenance for professional women turned stay-at-home moms,” the magazine’s website says.

Some six million women have chosen to leave the workforce to stay home and raise their children, the magazine’s chief editor, Erika Kotite, told AFP.

But they feel isolated, she said, and the magazine aims to address their needs “with humor and lightheartedness.”

Not a positive trend, say some

But not everyone sees this positively, especially feminists who fought decades ago to open workplace doors to women.

Rose Olver, a professor of women’s studies at Amherst College in Massachusetts, called the trend “somewhat alarming”.

“Women in the 1970s fought for access and my sense is that the urgency to open the work place to women has subsided,” Olver said.

“Opportunities open for women may decrease” in the future if more women drop out, she said.

“The older generation feel maybe a bit put out that this generation is so cavalierly assuming that these possibilities will be open to them.”

Child-rearing issue thornier

“The child-rearing issue is much thornier than many feminists thought it would be,” said professor Linda Fowler of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

“What feminist theorists thought was that, if enough women were in the workplace in high-scale and highly qualified jobs, the whole workplace economy would be more humanized. That has not happened,” Fowler told AFP.

“There is still a difference on obstacles women face as they are trying to juggle a career and family.”

But behind the debate of whether the trend is good or bad is a broader stagnation or even decline in women holding jobs in the US workplace after rising for 50 years straight.

“The new factor at play is the change in the trend in the female participation rate, which has edged down on balance since 2000 after having risen for five decades,” said a White House report last month.

Voluntary or forced dropouts?

In 2000, 77 percent of women between 25 and 54 held a job in the United States.

By 2005, the level had dropped to 75 percent, a significant demographic shift.

How much the data represents voluntary workplace dropouts by women and how much they are forced is still debated.

Kim Gandy, president of the feminist National Organization of Women, which helped promote working women from the 1960s, said the decline of women in the US workforce reflects in part simple economics: the fall in overall jobs since the US economy slowed sharply in 2000.

However, she said that other factors, like wages and the cost of childcare, impact working women much more than men.

“When good jobs are plentiful, it becomes easier to cover the cost of child care with your wages.”

“When wages are depressed ... it becomes a much closer question as to whether it’s worth a tradeoff.”

Often in families it is the woman rather than the man who weighs her own income against household costs, deciding whether or not to keep a job, Gandy said.

“There are definitely some women whose wage work does not bring in enough money in order to make a significant impact on the family,” she said.

“You might say that in her case she could make a choice, but most women don’t see it as a choice.”

AFP

Have something to say about the article? Say it here

Dr. Uma Chandrasekaran, Knowledge Village, Dubai says:

Women make workplaces better 

The article suggests that it’s mostly women in low-paying jobs who are opting out of offices. It’s sad that careers for women are still regarded only as an economic necessity. The fine print also suggests that more women are in less meaningful jobs that don’t contribute much to their psychological fulfillment.

If women learn to see working as a means of self-expression, I don’t see any conflict with domesticity although the balancing act is tough. And I strongly believe that women are capable of handling the show on both fronts.  

Or can choose to have the best of everything by working from home. Seeing a career and domesticity as mutually exclusive is socially regressive and not a good model for bringing up our children. One is not born a woman - but becomes one – shaped by society’s expectations?!

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Nadeem Naqi, Karachi, Pakistan says

YES.! It is a positive trend. Kids need time and a hand to hold their finger to teach as per our culture and trends and respect of parents and the world, if we leave them on their own while they are 6 months old to house maids and spent our life what we say freedom than we are going to face a big disaster in the future generation. 

We have to teach our children from our experience and that they will only listen to you if you had spent time with them and not shouting at them when they are adults. They will leave you and themselve on their own. A Child Needs a Mother not an office General Manager. An educated mother is much more better than an illiterate house maid.

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Shubhangi, Mumbai, India says

Yes it is. Homemaking is a challenging career in itself. Making a niche for ourself in the house is much more difficult than making it in the corporate world.

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