Kids come before jobs for working women: Survey
By IANSSaturday, October 23, 2010
NEW DELHI - Women prefer to work part time, rather than take up a full-time job, in order to spend maximum time with their children, a report said Saturday.
According to the study “Women’s Preference Towards Work”, conducted by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India’s (Assocham) Social Development Foundation, (ASDF), seven in ten working mothers say part-time work would be ideal for them, and if given a chance, they would prefer working from home.
The survey was conducted in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Pune, Banglore, Ahemdabad, Udaipur, Shimla, Dehradun, Indore, Patna, Cochin and Chennai, and interviewed 4,700 working parents.
“There has been a similar shift in preferences among at-home mothers with children. Just 16 percent of mothers prefer full-time jobs. Nearly 56 percent of all at-home moms say that not working outside the home at all is the ideal situation,” says D.S. Rawat, secretary general, Assocham.
The survey found that 72 percent fathers prefer part-time jobs for mothers. Also, mothers with children aged between 0 to 4 years are less likely to prefer full-time work.
Moreover, 48 percent of mothers prefer part-time work, while 36 percent prefer not working outside the home.
The opinion was uniform irrespective of the varying literacy levels among the participants.
“Every three in ten women say that a mother who does not work outside the home would be ideal for children and only one in ten say that a full-time working mother can be good mothers,” says Rawat.
Parents also rated themselves on a scale of 0 to 10. Women working full-time were found to be most critical of themselves. Just 10 percent of full-time working mothers gave themselves a score of 10.
Mothers, however, see themselves in a better light, on average, than do fathers, Rawat said.
Just 26 percent of dads gave themselves one of the two highest marks, while six in ten gave themselves seven or eight, and the remaining 13 percent gave themselves six marks or lesser.
