Everyone needs to “have it all”

Ahead of her keynote presentation today at our 5th International Conference: Unequal Families and Relationships, Kathleen Gerson writes for us about how rising uncertainties in jobs and relationships are reshaping strategies for work and care.


In the United States, like most of the developed world, debates are raging about whether women can "have it all" or need to "lean in." Yet these debates almost never focus on the real issue – that the new economy is creating impossible binds for everyone and no individual strategy can provide a solution. The rise of an economic system based on hi tech and service work has blurred the boundaries between home and work for women and men alike and thereby dismantled the “breadwinner-caregiver bargain” put in place during the industrial revolution.

The good news is that new generations of Americans are responding to this 21st century revolution by affirming a new gender ideal that stresses work-caregiving balance in the context of an egalitarian relationship. My interviews with twenty- and thirty-somethings, reported in The Unfinished Revolution, found that 80 percent of women and 70 percent of men hope to blend the traditional value of lifelong commitment with the modern value of flexible, egalitarian sharing. Mounting evidence from other studies shows similar trends: When it comes to their aspirations, most American women and men want flexibility and equality in their intimate relationships.

Yet there is plenty of bad news as well. Most Americans also believe that this egalitarian ideal is largely out of reach in the current context. At the workplace, the rise of job insecurity has created greater pressures to put in ever longer hours. On the home front, the rise of anxieties about childrearing, coupled with a lack of childcare, has simultaneously increased the pressure to practice intensive parenting. Even though new generations increasingly need and desire egalitarian relationships, new insecurities and pressures have made it even harder to share parenting equally and blend it with a satisfying work life.

How are new generations of Americans responding to this conundrum? In interviews with adults living in “new economy” locales such as Silicon Valley and New York, I have found a variety of strategies emerging to cope with these conflicts and uncertainties. About a third are “reluctant traditionalists,” where fathers are sacrificing family time to manage time-intensive jobs, while another 15 percent are “reversed traditionalists,” where women are providing the bulk of financial support even though they face barriers at work. An additional third are “going it alone” because financial insecurities make it difficult to sustain a relationship; and the remaining 15 percent are “exhausted egalitarians” who are attempting, against the odds, to maintain two demanding jobs while also attempting to share equally at home. Despite their differences, all these strategies entail significant drawbacks – and not for women alone. In the absence of social supports for integrating stable work with parenting involvement, everyone faces difficult and often painful trade-offs.

In an era when insecurity in both jobs and relationships is the new normal, we need to jettison the notion that “having it all” is an unrealistic, selfish goal that only applies to middle-class women. The widespread ideals of equality and balance reflect universal hopes that are increasingly essential for thriving societies as well as thriving relationships. In the U.S., as elsewhere, these urgent needs can only be met by creating social supports that dissolve the obstacles to achieving a more equal, integrated, and secure blending of work and care.

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Kathleen Gerson is Collegiate Professor of Sociology at New York University  You can read a brief introduction to her presentation 'Intimate Commitment in the New Economy: How Rising Uncertainties in Jobs and Relationships Are Reshaping Strategies for Work and Care' here

You can follow live tweets from the conference using the hashtag #CRFR2016 on Twitter.

http://www.kathleengerson.com/

What does the evidence say about childcare in Scotland?

The budget brings promises from the UK Govt for childcare subsidies to help couples with joint incomes who are "working hard, who are feeling the squeeze" and to "assist women back into the workforce". Similarly, the SNP have pledged to increase state-paid childcare for all three and four- year olds, again to "help people, especially women, to move into the workforce", if it was elected within an independent Scotland.

Those with an interest in research on families and relationships may question whether these announcements skim over some of the tough issues facing families, particularly those families struggling to get into work. The recent launch of the Scotland's Outlook campaign to raise awareness of the extent of poverty across Scotland, followed by the Scottish Government's publication of a new poverty strategy does help to widen the lens to look at the many contributing factors affecting many parents ability to enter the paid workforce.

CRFR reflects on what the evidence says about childcare and working families:

• Most families in Scotland use childcare in the early years[1]. This tends to be a mixture of informal (typically grandparent) and formal providers for their childcare arrangements[2]. The support provided by grandparents should not be underestimated, with many grandparents involved in childcare or babysitting on a regular basis. We know that work is important to women and families. Evidence from GUS shows that most mothers of young children who are in paid work, work part-time[3]. Mothers value work highly, not only for its economic contribution, but also for personal identity, social contact and as an important message for their children[4]. Most working parents with children under 5 believe that their employment is not detrimental to their enjoyment of family life nor to their ability to raise their child(ren).[5][6] 
• The focus on childcare costs is not misplaced - accessing available, affordable and quality childcare remains a key concern for parents combining caring and working[7][8]. But all is not equal. Factors associated with poverty can add up to make it tougher for families. Lone parent families and re-partnered families are more likely to have no parent in employment than couple families[9]. Lone mothers[10], families living on low incomes[11] and families affected by disability[12] are particularly affected by lack of affordable and suitable childcare.
• Work, does not in itself, protect families from poverty, particularly when there is only one worker in the household. Families in deprived areas often require quite complex childcare arrangements to make work a possibility[13].
• Parents from low-income areas tend to have low levels of social support and are least likely to access formal services[14].
• People living in rural areas and areas of higher deprivation are less likely to be able to access childcare services than those in urban areas[15]. 
• Living in child friendly communities and having a reasonable level of resources, such as access to outdoor play, are also very important to outcomes for children[16].
• Flexibility in childcare provision needs also to be matched by flexibility in workplace practices and employment opportunity: 
• Parents working full-time and those in lower supervisory or technical occupations were more likely to say that their employment had a negative impact on family life[17].
• Parents face competing demands on their time relating to their responsibilities as parents and employees. This is experienced through the difficulties of balancing work and family life and results in a sense of harriedness, of feeling constantly busy, tired and stressed.[18]
• Lone mothers of children of all ages are more likely to experience employment barriers. Low qualifications, lack of confidence, family health issues, lack of training and transport are other barriers they face[19].
• Parents of disabled children face particular barriers around employment, including inflexible employers, and especially a lack of affordable and appropriate childcare[20], which are not addressed in the consultation document.
• The debate on childcare should also consider the behavioural and cognitive benefits for children. Attending nursery or pre-school is important for our young children. Evidence from GUS shows that non-parental childcare in the early years is beneficial to a child’s cognitive development, in small effect[21]. However, universal policies which seek to improve children’s cognitive ability and school readiness in the pre-school period will not benefit all children equally.
• The level of parents’ education qualification is a driver in a child’s cognitive ability at ages 3 and 5. Any strategies aimed at improving school readiness via a pre-school setting need to include, for disadvantaged children, strategies which seek to influence the child’s home environment and parenting experiences at the same time[22].
• Similarly, lone parents, younger mothers, parents with lower educational qualifications and parents from more deprived socio-economic communities had lower levels of participation in their children’s school activities – both in terms of homework once they had started school and in the number of activities they attended at the school. This has been shown to be associated with lower educational achievement for children[23]
• Lastly, there is very little known about children’s views and experiences of their parent’s work. Qualitative research carried out in Scotland found that there are clear challenges in negotiating how work and family life balance out[18].
• Work is typically justified by the financial gains, rather than any of the social or personal benefits for parents, when helping children to understand why work is part of everyday life.
• ‘Home’ is an important space for children, and was described as a more natural space where they have greater freedom to be themselves. This was contrasted with the more collective and organised nature of after-school clubs.
• This brings challenges in keeping clear boundaries between home and work, and importantly how available they are to their children when at home – particularly for parents who also work from home.
• Parents expressed feelings of guilt and anxiety about not being able to give 100% to either work or family, and are constantly trying to meet the demands of both sides.
• Children are aware of the impact of work on their parents’ emotional and physical state, and do support their parents by complying with routines, helping with chores, looking after themselves and young siblings.
• However, families were creative in realising some of their aspirations, with holidays and weekend highlighted as times when children’s wishes could be better met, opportunities to reap some of the financial rewards of employment and overall family well-being achieved.

Are you involved in research that can contribute to this debate? We are interested to hear from others invovled in research on families and relationships. Please leave a comment below, tweet us at @CRFRtweets or email us at kirsten.thomlinson@ed.ac.uk.

 

 

[1] Bradshaw P. and Wasoff F. (2009) Growing Up in Scotland: Multiple Childcare Provision and Its Effect on Child Outcomes. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

[2] Jamieson, L., Warner, P. and Bradshaw, P. (2012) The involvement of grandparents in children’s lives. Growing Up in Scotland Topic Research Findings no.1/2012. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

[3] Bradshaw P, Cunningham-Burley S, Dobbie F, McGregor A, Marryat L, Ormston, R. and Wasoff F. (2008) Growing Up in Scotland: Sweep 2 Overview Report, Edinburgh: The Scottish Government.

[4] Backet-Milburn K, Cunningham-Burley S, and Kemmer D (2001) Caing and providing: Lone and partnered working mothers in Scotland. London: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

[5] Bradshaw P, Cunningham-Burley S, Dobbie F, McGregor A, Marryat L, Ormston, R. and Wasoff F. (2008) Growing Up in Scotland: Sweep 2 Overview Report, Edinburgh: The Scottish Government

[6] Backett-Milburn, K., Harden, J., Maclean, A., Cunningham-Burley, S. and Jamieson, L (2011) Work and family live: the changing experiences of ‘young families’. Timescapes final report, project 5. 

[7] Bradshaw P, Cunningham-Burley S, Dobbie F, McGregor A, Marryat L, Ormston, R. and Wasoff F. (2008) Growing Up in Scotland: Sweep 2 Overview Report, Edinburgh: The Scottish Government

[8] McKie, L., Gregory, S. and Bowlby, S. (2004) Caringscapes: the experiences of caring and working. CRFR research briefing No.13. Edinburgh: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships.

[9] Growing Up in Scotland (2009) Non-resident parent summary report. Growing Up in Scotland Topic Research Findings no. 1/2009. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

[10] Backet-Milburn K, Cunningham-Burley S, and Kemmer D (2001) Caring and providing: Lone and partnered working mothers in Scotland. London: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

[11] McKendrick J, Cunningham-Burley S and Backett-Milburn K (2003) Life in low income families in Scotland: Research report. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive 

[12] About Families (2012) Parenting on a low income. Edinburgh: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships.

[13] Barnes, M., Chanfreau, J. and Tomaszewski, W. (2010) The circumstances of persistently poor children summary report. Growing Up in Scotland topic research findings no.1/2010. Edinburgh: Scottish Government. 

[14] About Families (2012) Parenting on a low income. Edinburgh: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships. 

[15] Growing Up in Scotland (2009) Parenting and the neighbourhood context summary report, Growing Up in Scotland Topic Research Findings no. 3/2009. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

[16] Growing Up in Scotland (2009) Parenting and the neighbourhood context summary report, Growing Up in Scotland Topic Research Findings no. 3/2009. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

[17] Bradshaw P, Cunningham-Burley S, Dobbie F, McGregor A, Marryat L, Ormston, R. and Wasoff F. (2008) Growing Up in Scotland: Sweep 2 Overview Report, Edinburgh: The Scottish Government 

[18] Harden, J., Backett-Milburn, K., MacLean, A., Cunningham-Burley, S. and Jamieson, L. (2013) Home and away: constructing family and childhood in the context of working parenthood. Children’s Geographies, 11(3):298-310. 

[19] About Families (2012) Parenting on a low income. Edinburgh: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships.

[20] About Families (2012) Parenting on a low income. Edinburgh: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships.

[21] Growing Up In Scotland (2009) Multiple Childcare Provision and its Effect on Child Outcomes Summary Report. Growing Up in Scotland Topic Research Findings no.4/2009. Edinburgh: Scottish Government. 

[22] Bradshaw, P. (2011) Changes in child cognitive ability in the pre-school years, Growing Up in Scotland Topic Research Findings no.2/2011. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

[23] Bradshaw, P., Hall, J., Hill, T., Mabelis, J. and Philo, D. (2012) Early experiences of primary school – parental involvement in school activities. Growing Up in Scotland Topic Research Findings no.3/2012. Edinburgh: Scottish Government. 

 

 

Facing the facts about fathers and childcare

Gideon Burrows, author of Men Can Do It! The real reason dads don't do childcare, on the importance of facts, not wishful thinking

When it comes to parenting there are our own truths and there are indisputable facts.

Bed time routines, weaning techniques, re-useable or disposable nappies, whether to allow sweets or not; these are our own truths, developed out of the hard slog of simply bringing up children.

The fundamental mistake most of us make is assume our own truth should be applied as a general way to go about things: I do a strict bedtime routine with my kids, lots of my friends do too, therefore it's the correct way to go about things.

It was this attitude I encountered when my book on shared parenting was published. It concludes that men don't do anywhere near the amount of childcare – either in or out of working hours – that we've previously assumed.

I received a number of emails and social media messages from parents who said what I'd written was wrong. They'd shared parenting equally, some of their friends did too, so I must be making it all up to get a reaction.

Of course some families share parenting equally and those parents are likely to have friends who do things a bit like them.

What they were doing was applying their personal experience, and assuming it was generally true across all parenting. The sad, but real immutable truth is that parenting isn't anywhere near equal in the UK.

According to dispassionate numbers from the Office for National Statistics, the number of men becoming full-time stay-at-home dads has only increased by 6,000 men over the last ten years, compared with 44,000 fewer stay at home mums.

The number of men switching to part-time work has increased by a minuscule three percentage points, and is matched by only a similar increase in women going part time. The proportion of women working full time hasn't changed at all in a whole decade.

Outside of working hours, the same pattern emerges. Far from men taking up the cudgels of childcare in great numbers, women still do twice as many hours of childcare and related chores outside of working hours as men do. That has barely changed in a decade too.

These are facts, not personal truths.

It is these well researched immutable truths that should inform personal, political and academic practices on parenting, and particularly policy making, not a few parents' personal experiences posted as comments on newspaper websites.

Even the director of a fatherhood think-tank wrote to challenge my claim that women are paid more than men, before children are born: “I seriously doubt that's true”.

It made me sad to send her the spreadsheet from the National Office for Statistics that shows, very clearly, exactly that. Surely, they at least should have their facts straight?

Unfortunately, we're not even close to allowing immutable truth to influence policy.

UK government policy on parental leave, for example, has been set according to a generalised assumption that men want to take more time off, and work more flexibly, to be with their children.

Yet the simple, statistic-backed facts support the opposite conclusion: men aren't yet using even close to the wiggle room they already have.

Only 1,600 men have taken the legal right they've had for over two years to share of 26 week's parental leave with their partner. Over that same period, around 1.5 million babies have been born. One in three dads don't even take their full traditional legal entitlement to two weeks' paternity leave.

So why is the government creating more of what parents are showing by their practice they don't want, even if they say they do?

The answer is that what I call the 'new fatherhood myth' makes a good story. It gets the media excited and it makes us all feel good about how equal we are.

It prevents us facing up to the more unpalatable truth that progress towards parental equality is still painfully slow, and certainly nowhere near as far along as we'd thought.

All of which prevents personal and political action that – as my book illustrates, and the facts and research have clearly shown - would really create better outcomes for our children, for parents and for the workplace.

Gideon Burrows is author of Men Can Do It! The real reason dads don't do childcare (ngo.media, 2013). Visit www.mencandoit.co.uk to buy in paperback, or on Kindle.

Grandparents to the rescue…?!

The high and rising cost of professional childcare has been in the news recently, but there has been little mention of grandparents, who provide a substantial proportion of the child-care needed by young families.

At the simplest level, rising costs of childcare mean more children living in poverty. In March this year, Save the Children expressed concern that 3.5 million children in the UK are living in poverty, the majority of them in working households. Commenting on the recent welfare reforms in the UK (‘Universal Credit’), Save the Children pointed out that these would hit poorer working mothers hardest, whereas evidence from abroad suggests that enabling mothers to work reduces child poverty.

In reaction to the recent media focus on childcare costs, many commentators have noted that excessive increases in costs can mean the second income in two-income families is almost entirely spent on childcare, so that there is scant financial incentive to continue that employment. However, dropping out of employment during children’s early years can have enduring impacts, in terms of lost skills and/or failure to progress in a career structure, resulting in lower income and job satisfaction when resuming work. And of course it is most often women, as mothers, who are the ‘second’ workers. This scenario reinforces gender inequality in earnings in later life.

The Growing Up in Scotland (GUS) survey has been following the lives of thousands of children right across Scotland from infancy through to, currently, the end of primary school, but further sweeps of data collection are planned, up to teens. A recent GUS report looked at the role of grandparents in the lives of young families when the children were aged 6 years old, in 2010/11.

The report found that virtually all GUS children had at least one grandparent (99%), and 87% had at least one grandparent living nearby (within 20-30 minute drive). GUS has found that grandparents are a key source of regular informal childcare for parents throughout children’s early years, and that when children started school, reliance on grandparents increased markedly, to 67% among parents who used any childcare. Starting school, with the ensuing see-saw need for childcare depending on whether it is term time or holidays, poses a challenge for families, so this is a stage where grandparents can most support working parents by providing ‘flexible’ childcare. This generally requires grandparents to be not fully employed and, one would expect, to live reasonably close by.

One finding of the survey was that children in the highest income households were more likely to have no local grandparents (22%) than children in the lowest income households (8%). Nevertheless, in term-time, the proportion of children receiving ‘some hours’ of weekly grandparent care is highest among higher income groups, ranging from 43% in the highest income group to 24% in the lowest income group. And in the school holidays, receipt of childcare from a grandparent for more than 14 hours a week shows a similar pattern, ranging from 23% in the highest income group to 11% in the lowest. So, higher income families seem to be able to make more use of grandparent care, even when they are less likely be living ‘locally’. Perhaps is it to do with age (given that grandparents of children in higher incomes group tend to be older), and whether still employed. In this regard, the recent removal of compulsory retirement ages, and the prevailing economic situation and its impact on pensions, might mean that in subsequent survey sweeps it will be found that fewer families are benefiting from grandparent care, further exacerbating the adverse impacts of rising childcare costs.

Grandparents play an important and multi-faceted role in children’s lives, and in addition they are an invaluable childcare resource for parents, especially when children start school and flexible care is needed. It could be argued that this role is becoming more important with recent changes in welfare, and ever-increasing childcare costs, but clearly, working families will face challenges if more grandparents tend to continue in fulltime employment until older ages.

Pamela Warner, CRFR

Read the full GUS report at: Jamieson, L., Warner, P., and Bradshaw, P. (2012). Growing Up in Scotland: The involvement of grandparents in children's lives, Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

In addition to being a Co-Director at CRFR, Pam is Reader in Medical Statistics and is a member of staff at the University's Centre for Population Health Sciences (CPHS) teaching on their Master in Public Health.

Consulting on a Children & Young People Bill

CRFR recently submitted a response to the Scottish Government's consultation on a proposal for a Children & Young People Bill.

CRFR has undertaken a range of relevant research, to comment on key aspects of the Bill: i.e. children's rights, children's wellbeing and early learning and child care provision.

Our view was that the proposed Bill, if underlined by processes and commitments, could ensure that children's rights are given more breadth and depth in policy making and practice. Certainly, the Ministerial support for 'making rights real' for children is very welcome.

However, we raised a number of points for consideration. 

• The Government should include a much clearer statement on how it will incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights on the Child (UNCRC) into domestic law, including timeframes.
• There needs to be more clarity on the duty on Scottish Ministers to "take appropriate steps to further the rights of children and young" and the duty should be extended to public bodies.
• Children's rights need to be the overarching framework for the Bill, and duties on public bodies should be focused on improving rights -- which incorporate children's wellbeing.
• Any strategies aimed at improving school readiness via a pre-school setting need to include, for disadvantaged children, strategies that seek to influence the child's home environment and parenting experiences at the same time.
• Children should be consulted, along with parents, to develop early learning and childcare provision.
• Developments in early learning and childcare must marry the need for high-quality care with flexible and accessible provision that also enables parents to take up employment. This is not happening for many families, particularly those in more disadvantaged circumstances or who are affected by disability.

 Please read our full response, with links to evidence, at:

http://www.crfr.ac.uk/consultations.html