Is the Gender Revolution at Work Over?

So asks Eduardo Porter in his piece for the New York Times yesterday, Stretched to Limit, Women Stall March to Work.

In the article, Porter observes:

For four decades, the number of women entering the workplace grew at a blistering pace, fostering a powerful cultural and economic transformation of American society. But since the mid-1990's, the growth in the percentage of adult women working outside the home has stalled, even slipping somewhat in the last five years and leaving it at a rate well below that of men.

While the change has been under way for a while, it was initially viewed by many experts as simply a pause in the longer-term movement of women into the work force. But now, social scientists are engaged in a heated debate over whether the gender revolution at work may be over.

Is this shift evidence for the popular notion that many mothers are again deciding that they prefer to stay at home and take care of their children?

Maybe, but many researchers are coming to a different conclusion: women are not choosing to stay out of the labor force because of a change in attitudes, they say. Rather, the broad reconfiguration of women's lives that allowed most of them to pursue jobs outside the home appears to be hitting some serious limits.

Of course, this is not the first time that the Times has covered work/family issues concerning women. A few years back, Loiuse Story wrote a controversial piece entitled, Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood, which was criticized at the time for its faulty research methods.

More recently, there has been a rather nasty debate between Linda Hirschman and her critics about whether it is a mistake for educated women to remain at home with their kids.

I have a thought or two on this topic. First, I think that the pressures that used to exist for educated women to work at all costs are starting to dwindle and reach some form of equilibrium. Whereas in the 80s and 90s you were a traitor to the feminist cause if you were educated and dared to choose motherhood, I sense there is some "feminist fatigue" and it is now perfectly acceptable if upwardly-mobile women wish to spend parts of their adult years raising a family.  Consequently, I think Hirschman represents a more militant bygone era in arguing that educated women are wating their time attending to their motherly duties.

Second, to be educated, means understanding the worth of both being a mother and being a career woman.  It is not an all or nothing proposition, but one of balance. And as I wrote yesterday with regard to longer tenure requirements, different jobs are starting to be fashioned to permit women the chance to have families without falling too far behind in their careers.  That being said, I think Porter has a point when he says there are inevitably structural limitations to how much flexibility can be achieved between family and workplace obligations.

Nevertheless, there is some hope that American society will continue to recognize the importance of good workplace/family policies.  In this vein, there is still the need to advoate for more work flexibility legislation and proactive mother-friendly workplace policies.

Hat Tip:  Dana Nguyen

PS