It is a very generalised and blinkered notion that working mothers are unable to maintain a family as smoothly as non-working mothers. This notion has more to do with the fact that raising kids and looking after the family have always been considered to be a woman’s job and not the man’s. Thankfully, all that is gradually changing now.
Discrediting that notion is a working paper published by the Harvard Business School, which states that daughters of women who work are more likely to be employed, earn more and hold more supervisory positions than daughters of women who are not employed.
The study also shows that sons of working mothers are more likely to spend their time caring for family and helping out with household chores.
As reported by Quartz, the study also showed that daughters of working mothers are 4.5% more likely to be employed than daughters of non-working mothers. The data for the research has been collected from 24 countries.
In the US, daughters of working mothers earn $5,200 more than daughters of stay-at-home mothers.
Kathleen McGinn tells Quartz “We did expect that it would effect employment but we didn’t expect that it would effect supervisory responsibility”. She further added “What I take away is that employed mothers create an environment in which their children’s attitudes on what is appropriate for girls to do and what is appropriate for boys to do is affected”.
“When you go to work, you are helping your children understand that there are lots of opportunities for them,” McGinn dds, very aptly.
You can read the original article here.