The majority of millennials believe that children are better off if one parent stays at home while the other parent works, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Among survey participants between the ages of 18-29, 54 percent say one parent saying at home to tend to the family is better for their children.
“The view that children are better off when one parent doesn’t work outside the home is particularly common among older Americans. But even among those under age 30, fully 54% hold this view,” Nikki Graf reported for Pew. “And younger men are far more likely than younger women to say children are better off with a parent at home (62% vs. 46%).”
However, these young Americans are also the age group most likely to believe that children with two working parents are “just as well off” (45%).
These results could be due to the diverse types of households that millennials were raised in. While the overwhelming majority of Baby Boomers were raised in traditional, nuclear families, millennials had a wider variety of family structures. The divorce rate of our parents is higher than that of our grandparents, and our mothers are more likely than our grandmothers to have worked. Therefore, many of us grew up with single parents, and many of those who did have two parents had mothers who worked.
What’s interesting here is that among individuals who think it’s beneficial for one parent to stay at home, the age of the respondent plays a part in determining which parent this should be.
“Older adults also are more likely than their younger counterparts to say that the parent staying home should be the mother,” Graf said. “In contrast, those in younger age groups are more likely to say it doesn’t matter which parent stays home than they are to say the mother should be the at-home parent.”
Among those aged 18-29, only 38 percent believe that the mother should stay at home with children, while 55 percent say it doesn’t matter which parent takes on that role. This contrasts with older generations, who tend to think the mother staying at home is most beneficial.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about half of mothers in 2015 worked full-time, and an additional 16 percent worked part-time. The number of women in general who work, whether mothers or not, continues to rise. More and more young women are getting a college education and pursuing careers, with young couples staring families later than their parents did.
What works best for individual families and their children depends on that family itself, and it seems as though millennials are beginning to recognize that. Young women are not expected to be stay-at-home moms like the women before them were, giving men the opportunity to share in what were previously female-dominated parenting roles.
