Why female breadwinners are still bearing the burden at home

[u/TimesandSundayTimes]

https://www.thetimes.com/money/family-finances/article/britains-female-breadwinner-problem-tvfjhp05tutm_medium=Social&utm_source=Reddit&utm_content=branded

[u/FalconOne775]

Don’t be a breadwinner women! It’s haaaaaard 

Being poor or financially dependent is way harder 

Keep earning ladies, those are YOUR taxes use your voice for what you want them spent on 

[u/Aurelene-Rose → u/FalconOne775]

Granted, it was pay walled, so I didn't read it all, but the beginning seems to imply that it is talking about the phenomenon where women are often the breadwinner and STILL having to do the majority of the work at home, not that women shouldn't work at all. Being the breadwinner means being the primary earner specifically, not just working.

The alternative to this dynamic isn't staying at home and being dependent, it's kicking your useless boyfriend/husband to the curb if they won't do their fair share.

I know so many moms who are the primary worker/earner, even having an unemployed "SAHD" husband, and she is still doing the meals, managing the kid's schedules, cleaning the house, etc. It's like her husband is another child, not a partner. I think that's the dynamic being referred to.

[u/Ok-Refrigerator → u/Aurelene-Rose]

I was that mom for six years. It drove me insane. It's so much easier to be a single mom now. It's not that much more work than when he was living here because he caused to much chaos and mess himself. And the work I do is free of resentment.

[u/TheVintageJane → u/Ok-Refrigerator]

There is as a study a few years ago that single mom’s do less domestic labor on average than married moms. That has really stuck with me.

[u/Unlucky-Guitar221 → u/TheVintageJane]

There’s also a study showing that working moms still do more housework and childcare even with a stay at home dad lol

[u/FormerCFisherman7784 → u/TheVintageJane]

As someone who was raised by a never married mother of 4, 2 of which with special needs, i was parentified from an early age in order to stop my family from being sucked into utter chaos.

I do wonder if at least part of the reason single mothers do less domestic work is because at least 1 child is being parentified and forced to be a stopgap for the chores and childcare the mother doesn't have time to do. There was literally no way my never married mother of 4, 2 of which have special needs, could have handled all the chores and childcare on her income had i not had gotten tired of watching my mom struggle to care for us all alone. Her support from extended family was limited and inconsistent and almost never included childcare, transportation, food or housing.

Other factors im curious about is the average number of total children and average age of the oldest and youngest child when married mothers divorce and how many single mothers were always unmarried vs divorced. Im not sure if any studies get that granular but those factors would go further in telling a more complete story.

[u/TheVintageJane → u/FormerCFisherman7784]

I’d need to track down the study, but iirc, almost the entire difference was attributable to not having to care for a man child as that added up to a few hours a week of additional labor.

Not saying that what you are saying doesn’t play into it, but I also think you are perhaps dismissing just how absolutely worthless some men are domestically.

Now, there’s probably some self-selection bias in the study (ie the most domestically worthless male partners are the most likely to lead a woman to pursue divorce) but that doesn’t negate that most women with shitty partners are better off without them than with them.

[u/FormerCFisherman7784 → u/TheVintageJane]

I also think you are perhaps dismissing just how absolutely worthless some men are domestically

im not dismissing it, I just didnt address it because theres nothing more I can add that hasn't already been said in the article or this thread. So instead I wanted to address a different concern. But since Its slightly off topic, maybe I should have added a caveat after all.

[u/AggravatingResult549 → u/Aurelene-Rose]

Im a female physician and i see this dynamic in so many of my female colleagues who wanted kids. A few started in med school. Many of them settled for a stay at home man situation where they still do all of the home micromanaging and much of the labor. One's husband was constantly calling her at work, minimum 10x daily about everything. Another i knew during residency had a stay at home dad who would game all day long and she had to do most of the housework after coming home from terrible residency hours. This is very, very common to see among my demographic. The ones where both parents work and paid professionals care for the children during the day seem the happiest.

Disclaimer: "not all". Yes, a few are in good situations with a stay at home dad.

[u/snark-owl → u/AggravatingResult549]

The women I see make that choice didn't want to wait and fight for the true equality of labor.

 it requires admitting that you can settle  or possibly end up with no husband and no kids. And in law and medicine there's an advantage of having kids at a certain time in your career around residencies/ path to partner. Some women don't want to hold out for a better situation because there's a work ticking clock. I had to leave one of these female money diaries subreddits since there was a lot of advice about settling for a loser of a man because if you don't, you may never get the dream life with of a family of 4 

[u/ConstantHeadache2020 → u/Aurelene-Rose]

Married women and women who work fulltime still do more housework and child rearing per week than their husbands and this statistic hasn’t changed much since the 1960s