Working Mothers: The Effects on Society and Family

Thankfully, the ‘Ward Cleaver’ image of the family is on its way out yet, according to sociologists, the sexual inequality associated with assigning men the role of the economic provider and women as the child rearer and homemaker, is still very much in existence. These social stereotypes remain in spite of the fact that, within the last few decades, there has been a sharp increase in the number of mothers deciding to venture outside the home and into paid employment. Statistics show that the level of mothers in paid employment has risen from one in eight in the 1950's to a present day estimate of over fifty percent (Bolton 2000) and, according to the Department of Labor (2001), in 2001 women were found to compose forty-eight percent of the entire labor force furthermore it is forecasted that in 2008 that percentage will equal or exceed 50 percent. The majority of mothers are in employment out of necessity, either because of single parenthood, divorce, widowhood or other facto...