A Well - Being Penalty for Working Mothers? Parental Work Arrangements and Maternal Well - Being in Two - Parent Families

Steady increases in womens labor force participation over the past half century have occurred alongside the ratcheting up of expectations for intensive parenting. We know little about how mothers fare in the context of dual devotions to work and parenting. Using a new module in the 2010 and 2012 American Time Use Surveys, we assess mothers subjective well-being in parenting in the context of her and her partners work arrangements. Preliminary results suggest that compared to non-working mothers, working mothers do less of the desirable parenting tasks like play and more of that which is less desirable. This differential may explain working mothers lower happiness and higher stress and fatigue in parenting.Further, mothers working full-time while theirpartners work less than full time report less happiness, more stress, and more fatigue inparenting than those with other workarrangements, even full-time working mothers withfull-time working partners.