Charting Our Hard Work

heritage.org | Heritage research | The Foundry | à la chart Archive May 7, 2008 To select your size and format of this graphic, click here. For a Jennifer Marshall op-ed on moms and careers, click here. For a Rebecca Hagelin column on why marriage matters, click here. For an op-ed on putting motherhood “on hold,” click here. For research findings on motherhood and parenting, click here. Twenty-five years ago, women overtook men in the number of bachelor's degrees awarded each year. A few years later, more women than men also were earning master's degrees. Today, women hold more than half of all professionally related jobs and are closing in on half of the management, business and finance jobs. On the personal side, though, the marriage rate for women fell 25 percent from 1990 to 2005, analysts for The Heritage Foundation note. By 2004, the proportion of women ages 40 to 44 who were not yet mothers -- 19 percent -- was nearly double the number in 1976. Mother’s Day, which arrives May 11, is the topic of this edition of “à la chart,” your free editorial content from Heritage. Federal data shows that, on average, mothers put in well over 150 eight-hour “work days” a year just in doing housework, making meals and, well, mothering their children. That’s without counting time spent in school and church activities, shuttling the kids around, helping with homework, paying bills, entertaining -- or paid employment outside the home. “Mother's Day is an occasion to honor the institution of motherhood as well as to express our gratitude to the individual women who have lived faithfully in this calling,” writes Jennifer A. Marshall, Heritage’s director of domestic policy studies. Despite getting a bad rap from feminists, dreams of marriage and motherhood haven’t gone out of style for young American women, Marshall says. Nine of every 10 girls who are seniors in high school consistently rank marriage and family as keys to future happiness. “When options increase, so does the complexity of navigating among them,” Marshall writes elsewhere. “Today, one of the most important challenges for those interested in enhancing the opportunities of young women is to help them reconcile their plans beyond graduation with the amazing gift of motherhood.” You can see our “à la chart” archive here. Please feel free to e-mail feedback or ideas for future à la charts to ken.mcintyre@heritage.org. To reach an expert for comment, call (202) 675-1761. Regards, Ken McIntyre Special Projects Editor