What does a woman want? I'll let braver souls answer Freud's eternal question, but I am ready to address a related question with public-policy implications: What do working women with children want?
It turns out they want to work outside the home less and tend to their families more. That's what a politically pregnant recent Pew Research Center survey has found. Although the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 24 percent of all working mothers have a part-time job, 60 percent of working moms surveyed by Pew said that part-time work is the ideal situation. Another 19 percent would rather not work outside the home at all. What percentage think a full-time job is ideal? A mere 21 percent.
And these are moms who now work outside the home; 48 percent of stay-at-home moms believe that not working at all outside the home is best.
These are astonishing figures given the hostility to stay-at-home moms and the traditional family we've seen over the past few decades from our cultural elites. Their bid to make working outside the home the only marker of social value and self-respect seems to have failed.
Pew also surveyed moms a decade ago, and the difference between attitudes then and now makes something else clear: There has been a backlash against elite notions about work, family and motherhood. In 1997, 48 percent of working moms thought part-time work to be the ideal. Again, today's figure is 60 percent. And 32 percent of working moms thought full-time work to be the ideal in 1997. Just 21 percent think so today.
The message could not be clearer: Working moms want to spend more time at home, and stay-at-home moms would like to stay there.
That's good news for anyone who believes "it takes a family" to ensure a healthy society. Moms in particular and the public in general—the Pew survey results on the work issue are the same for both moms and the overall population—are affirming traditional families and at-home motherhood.
But government could do much more to give parents the chance to live out the desires of their hearts. Public policies to foster telecommuting or to allow hourly workers with kids to swap overtime pay for comp time or flex time would help. But the key thing government could do is let parents keep more of their own money. That would make it easier for them to support their families with moms staying home, part-time or full-time. Lower taxes on families would give more parents the freedom to order their family lives in the manner that working- and stay-at-home moms say they prefer.
Start by keeping marginal tax rates low and making the elimination of the marriage penalty permanent. We should raise the tax deduction for children, as well as raise and index the child tax credit. Might such a family-friendly initiative "cost" the government in lost tax revenues over the short-run? Perhaps. But even if short-term revenue losses are not offset by cutting spending or closing tax loopholes, easing the tax burden on working families is a sound long-term investment. The social-science evidence consistently shows that the traditional family is the best social welfare program on the planet.
Consider the increase in taxes on the average family since 1950. It comes to almost 25 percent of total household income. Guess how much the second earner in an average family makes today. The answer is about 25 percent of what the primary breadwinner makes. So working spouses allow the average family to bring in the same after-tax income as the average 1950 family.
That's one problem that government—even Congress—could solve. It's a natural for anyone who says they're for lower taxes and less government involvement in our lives. And for anyone who sees the family as one of society's first-order institutions, and not just a provider of children who can just as easily be tended to by this or that government program. It's a problem that should bring together limited-government conservatives and so-called compassionate conservatives.
We say we value strong traditional families. It is time our tax code—or, until then, a family-friendly tax platform—reflects this. And reflect, as the recent Pew Research Center survey also makes clear, the wishes of both working and stay-at-home mothers.
