While it’s well-known that American professionals do not enjoy the same employment prospects, benefits, and leisure time as many of their peers in other Western nations, many don’t appreciate the repercussions of US “overwork” culture and its effects on female professionals. According to a recent piece in Time, the long hours typically required to get ahead in the US workforce can be particularly burdensome to women who are trying to balance their careers with personal and family obligations.
It’s true that opinions on working mothers have been on the upswing after a negative turn in the 90s and 2000s, but as recently as 2012, 1/3 of the General Social Survey respondents still claimed that the best sort of family is a “traditional” one – with the male partner earning the family income and the woman remaining in the home. However, this doesn’t negate the fact that American women, including mothers of small children, often have to work to support themselves and their families.
Cited in the Time article is Sociologist, Joan Williams, who refers to the “ideal worker norm,” which is prevalent in the US, where professionals are constantly at their employer’s disposal, even if just by email and telephone. Youngjoo Cha, assistant professor of Sociology at the University of Indiana, points out that as of 2007, 17% of men and only 7% of women were working 50 or more hours a week. Because men are often more available to work longer hours, this could account for as much as 10% of the pay gap since 2007.
The clincher for many working American women – particularly mothers – is that employers often expect them to keep up despite personal and family obligations. Coupled with the US’s famous cultural penchant for hard work and high motivation, this can spell career abandonment for some working females who can afford to leave the workforce entirely – reverting back to their “traditional” role by returning to the domestic realm.
Do you have personal experience with gender issues in the American workforce, either as an expat or an American yourself? What do you think it is about American organizational cultures that weigh heavily on working mothers?
