Work in Progress, Worklife, Workplace, TIME

May 12, 2008 2:12

Are stay-at-home moms worth more?

Posted by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen | Comments (14) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

Salary.com released its annual Mother's Day findings on what it thinks moms ought to be paid. (Figure out your own worth on the site's Mom Calculator.) From its release:

For 2008, Salary.com determined that the time mothers spend performing the 10 most popular "Mom job functions" would equate to an annual cash compensation of $116,805 for a Stay-at-Home Mom and $68,405 for a Working Mom, down from last years calculations of $138,094 and $85,938.

Whoa. Stay-at-home moms merit more pay than working moms? How'd that compute? The website says it used proprietary software and these parameters:

The job titles that best matched a mom's definition of her work in both countries are (in order of hours spent per week): housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, laundry machine operator, computer operator, psychologist, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive officer and janitor.

And:

The primary driver of mom's six-figure salary, however, remains the amount of overtime worked. This year, mom's overtime averaged 54.4 hours per week. According to the Salary.com survey, Stay-at-Home Moms work a 94.4 hour "workweek" - over half her time spent on the job is overtime. The Working Moms reported an average 54.6 hour "mom work week" in addition to their paying jobs.

Okay. I have no problem with the job of mom being highly valued, if only by some b.s. survey designed to garner the website some press. But what sticks in my craw is the devaluing of working moms and dads. We too perform those other roles—housekeeper, cook, shrink—but on top of schlepping off to bring home the bacon. I just can't figure out how a stay-at-home parent pulls more overtime than a working one. Someone help me out with this math.

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Reader Comments (14)

Gerry

Shouldn't the calculator deduct wages for a job poorly done? My mom was a lot of things, but competent psychologist she was not. Unless "what's the matter with you?" is an accepted school of psychology.

Seriously, though, take a look at the categories on the list. Laundry machine operator? CEO? Computer operator? RN? It's a joke, right? I do the household laundry, but I am not a laundry machine operator. I'm not even sure that that job actually exists. I smear cuts with antibacterial ointment before applying a Dora Band-Aid, but does that make me a registered nurse? I cobble together meals, but I'm no nutrionist. The site might as well add libraian to the list because I loaned a book to my brother.

Isn't it enough do things for the ones you love without factoring in how much you would be paid by others to do them? Does eveything have to be reduced to dollars and cents?

Posted by Gerry | May 12, 2008 4:43 PM

nickelking:

If it helps maybe they computed working moms as people with two jobs. So it would be 80 hours per week before any OT came in.

Posted by nickelking | May 12, 2008 5:17 PM

13enster:

I think parenthood is a salaried position - so no @%$#^ overtime. Also, they should consider the benefits package before grousing about undervalued stay-at-home parents.

I am sure that those findings will lead to a great wellspring of sympathy for the unfortunate single-income households from those households with the "luxury" of multiple jobs.

Let them eat cake, they might actually have time to bake it!

Posted by 13enster | May 12, 2008 6:25 PM

Malcolm:

Lisa,
It seems that they are only valuing the work that Working Moms do at home. That is, this would be on top of the amount they earned at their jobs. And they do work more overtime because practically all of their housework is overtime. The assumption being made is that Stay-At-Home Moms spend more hours per week on childcare and housework than ones who work fulltime.

I think they way they calculated the value of this work seems pretty silly. I mean, CEO? Computer operator? To value it properly, just think of how much you would have to pay to someone (or combination of people, more likely) to take care of your kids and clean your house.

Posted by Malcolm | May 13, 2008 12:23 AM

BookMama:

Oh, for heaven's sakes. Of course at-home moms aren't worth more. They would just earn a larger "salary" if their at-home work were paid because they do more of it. A mom who works outside of the home gets someone else to watch her kids. An at-home mom spends that time taking care of kids. Naturally that adds up to more "pay."

I think worry about working makes people unable to admit that there is a value to being an at-home mom. Working has advantages - salary, benefits, prestige. Staying at-home has advantages and the main one is more time with your kids. Give at-home moms a little credit and stop worrying about it. Working parents can still be good parents. Your children will love you. They will grow up to be good people. You are taking care of them financially.

Now can you allow for the other side of it - at-home moms are doing valuable work. They are raising children. They have expertise in it. They deserve recognition and financial protection.

Posted by BookMama | May 13, 2008 8:29 AM

Stacie berdan

I agree with BookMama. The less competition about who does what, how often and what it's worth will allow more people (if they have the luxury) to CHOOSE what they believe is the best job for them. Whether it's working full time with full-time paid help, working and doing it all yourself, or staying at home, it's about choice -- and being satisfied with it.

Less competition and more acceptance will be better for women on this always hotly-contested, debated issue.

Posted by Stacie berdan | May 13, 2008 9:54 AM

dixie:

I agree that both working moms and at-home moms perform valuable chores, however, I don't agree with BookMama on the idea that someone at home is worth a larger salary because they do more of it. They're just at home longer, that's all. I cook. I clean. I pack lunches, check homework, tend cuts and bruises. I do all the things an at-home Mom does, but perhaps in a more efficient way because I don't have the luxury of spare time. I used to pay someone to take care of my children 40 hours a week, but they outgrew that. And how many at-home moms take their kids to preschool?

I also disagree about at-home moms deserving financial protection. If they want financial protection, it should be an insurance policy or annuity that they buy--not social security based on what the spouse earned. I've paid into social security for 30 years now and EARNED what little I will get. Someone who chose to stay home didn't earn a share. Staying home was her and her husband's choice--she should get a cut of his earnings, not an amount based on his earnings.

Posted by dixie | May 13, 2008 10:07 AM

Prklypear:

Right on, Dixie! I've been on both sides of the fence - worked full-time outside the home, worked from home, did the stay-at-home-mom thing (albeit briefly) and have come full circle to working outside the home again now that kids are a little older. From my experience, working moms do BOTH jobs, they just manage their time more creatively and multi-task 24/7. Show me a guy that works full-time and takes care of 3 kids and I'll show you an anomaly; working moms do it in their sleep.

Posted by Prklypear | May 13, 2008 10:56 AM

James:

I really think too much is being read into this. The release explicitly states that this information for working moms is "in addition to their paying jobs." The difference in 'pay' is simply a function of hours worked in the home, which implies no real devaluing of working moms. Consistent with this, the difference in the number of hours worked in home between working and stay-at-home moms is 39.8 hours (haha, or almost exactly the 40 hour work week the working mom is working). A couple of rough calculations show that that the average hourly rates for working moms and stay-at-home moms for at-home work are $24.00 and $23.80, respectively, based on the figures provided. This actually indicates working moms are being 'paid' more highly for their time in the home, but the difference is probably small enough to chalk that up to statistical or rounding error. Whether or not use of titles such as CEO or computer operator are bogus for these calculations is open to debate, but there is no inequity in the treatment of working vs. stay-at-home moms here.

Posted by James | May 13, 2008 11:02 AM

homegirl:

I would assign less glamourous job titles to what I do at home with my kids all day. Something like janitorial worker, short-order cook, dishwasher. If laundry machine operator was a real job, my 3 year old would need to start getting a salary because I let her press the buttons on my machine every day. And sometimes she does it after 5pm, so she would deserve overtime compensation as well. The good news is, the last time I saw an article like this that assigned monetary value to stay-at-home mom work, it was closer to around $90,000. So at least someone's salary is going up, even if it's only imaginary.

Posted by homegirl | May 13, 2008 1:31 PM

BookMama:

Maybe if we look at this another way. When my children were little, my husband went to work and I stayed home. We both cooked and did housework. I, however, spent more time taking care of the children. He spent plenty of time with them, maybe even more than if I'd been working outside the home because I was ready for a break at the end of the day and on weekends. Still, I spent many more hours with our children. It's not possible to work full time outside the home and do the same job as an at-home mom unless you never sleep.

To put it another way, if the imaginary salary for work-at-home was the same for working mothers and at-home mothers, it would be an incredible insult to at-home moms. The suggestion would be that we are doing nothing for 40 hours/week. Give at-home moms some credit - we spend more time with our children than if we worked full-time. That's not an insult to working moms anymore than saying I spend more time with our kids than my working husband is an insult to him. We're just doing different things for our families.

One thing salary.com did overlook though: there are large numbers of mothers who work part-time so that they can spend more time with their kids. It's not just a choice between Working Mom and At-Home Mom; there should be another group with an intermediate "salary."

Also, one thing I noticed - the salary.com article does NOT say that at-home moms are working more overtime. It specifically says the opposite - the at-home mom is working more "at-home" hours total, but if you subtract 40 hours, you get less than the working mom's "at-home" hours which are all considered overtime.

Posted by BookMama | May 17, 2008 3:21 AM

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Posted by libya | August 28, 2008 4:08 AM

About Work In Progress

Nina Subin

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen is a staff writer for TIME. She blogs about work. Why? Because TV was taken. Think of her as the grumpy colleague ranting by the water cooler.
More about the Author

Email her here:
lisa_cullen at timemagazine.com