Children are much more likely than not, to grow up in a household in which both their parents work, and in nearly half of all two-parent families today, they work full time with College-educated white parents significantly more likely than other parents to say work-family balance is difficult.
The data are the latest to show that while family structure seems to have permanently changed, public policy, workplace structure and mores have not seemed to adjust to a norm in which both parents work.
The PEW survey also found that white parents were more than 10 percentage points more likely to express stress than nonwhite parents. Historically, white and black mothers have been more likely to work outside the home than Asian and Latina mothers, and foreign-born mothers have been particularly likely to stay home, Pew has found.
In 46 percent of all two-parent households, both parents work full-time, according to Pew, up from 31 percent in 1970. The share of households with a mother who stays home has declined to 26 percent from 46 percent. Pew surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,807 parents in every state on both landlines and cellphones.
Other data also show that working parents are the new norm. Sixty percent of children now live in households where all the parents at home work at least part time, up from 40 percent in 1965, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
The shift has economic implications. The median household income for a family in which both parents work full time is $102,400, according to Pew, compared with $84,000 when mothers work part time and $55,000 when they stay home.
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In my anguish... 