A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON

WORKING WOMEN AND NONWORKING WOMEN:

EFFECTS ON THE CHILD AND
FAMILY
Introduction
Indian women have been gradually coming out of traditional roles and are
expressing themselves more and more in professional life. In recent years
the role and status of the women have been changed tremendously
especially from their role in a household. With increasing female education
and more liberty for their rights and privileges, womens attitude towards
their stereotyped role is changing. Their participation in education and work
place has also led to a difference in the socio-familial roles.
This being said, Women continue to be driven by existing cultural norms and
values, especially in India. Due to the nature of the roles of men and women
in our society, the primary responsibility for family caretaking often falls on
women, and such responsibility affects the working lives of women more
than it affects the working lives of men.
One could define a working mother as a woman with the ability to combine a
career with the added responsibility of raising a child. Stress loads can be
quite high amongst working mothers and these may often reflect in their
relationships at home. She is stressed to reach work on time, to send her
child to school and to reach all the children's deadlines on time including
food and dress, and she is also pressed for time to look after her home
simultaneously. Housework is still considered the woman's domain. Working
women shoulder additional responsibility of the work place as well as at their
domestic front.
The rush of married women into the workforce runs against traditional
thinking that women must choose between family and career. Many
observers condemned working mothers as selfish, unnatural and even

dangerous to their children and society (Wilson, 2006). It was complained

that the rise in juvenile delinquency could also be attributed to women who
are working mothers, but needs and requirements of the family unit will
always supersede ill-defined logic. Women, motherhood or not, continue to
work. The reasons are, more often than not, aspirational. Many of these
mothers are young and have spent years developing their careers.

Objectives of the Study:

1) To understand the impact of maternal employment on a childs wellbeing, education and social behavior vis--vis that of a non-working
mother
2) To understand the impact of working wives on family relationships vis-vis that of a non-working wife

Hypothesis
H0: There is no difference in a childs upbringing and family relationships for
working and non-working women
H1: There is significant difference in a childs upbringing and family
relationships for working and non-working women

Methodology:
The data collected will extensive and include questionnaires from mothers,
fathers, and children primarily from Hyderabad with few samples also being
taken from other metropolitan and tier-II cities; personal interviews with
mothers, children and family members who stay with them; standard
achievement test scores provided by the schools, teachers' ratings of the
children's social and academic competence, and ratings by classroom peers
of their behavior and how much they are liked

Research Methods & Tools

Comparative Study
Data will be analyzed between working mothers and non-working
mothers between the ages of 25-40 years.

Semi- Structured Questionnaires will be used to measure mother role

satisfaction, demographic characteristics, and coping strategies.

Interviews will be conducted with the participants from each age group
to develop a detailed insight

The method of data collection encompasses both qualitative and

quantitative data. Close ended questions on the questionnaire will
allow a statistical analysis. Meanwhile, open ended questions of the
questionnaire and the interview results will give qualitative data for
analysis.

Ethical Considerations

Voluntary participation: Informed consent, voluntary with drawl and

complete description should be given of the purpose of the research.

Confidentiality: All private information shall be kept confidential,
participants private details will not be violated.

Review of Current Literature:

Rout, Usha R.; Cooper, Cary L. & Kerslake, Helen (1997)
The study provides some useful insight into the differences across
psychological well-being between working mothers and stay at home
mothers. The research that has been quoted in the study and the empirical
research conducted by the authors, testify to a positive co-relation between
stable mental health and employment, which in turn impacts family wellbeing and happiness. Working mothers are advantaged by the dual roles that
they play; consequently they suffer from less stress and depression in
comparison to stay at home mothers. The primary stressor for working
mothers is the basic need to give their best to all the roles that they are
expected to fulfill (wife, mother, and employee).

McIntosh, Bauer (2006)

The results of the study indicate that having a working or stay at home
mother does not determine a childs academic ability. Across the board,
working and stay at home mothers claimed their child/children currently
perform at or above grade level. Both working and stay at home mothers
also feel that their childs emotional state was stable. The similarities
between working and stay at home mothers end there. When asked how
these mothers children react to new situations working mothers
overwhelmingly stated that their children reacted appropriately to new
situations whether they were present or not. One mother stated her children
are comfortable and confident when presented with new situations. Stay at
home mothers on the other hand dont see the same confidence projected
by their children. When stay at home mothers are out with their children and
confronted with new situations the children tend to cling to their mothers
and hang back. When the child is left on their own they have a tendency to
cry and/or show shy behavior. All of the classic symptoms of separation
anxiety were noted by stay at home mothers.
Hoffman (1998 )
Twenty years ago, it would have seemed strange to give a talk on maternal
employment and not focus on it as a social problem, but there is little in
these data to suggest it is. The mother's employment status does have
effects on families and children, but few of these effects are negative ones.
Indeed, most seem positive -- the higher academic outcomes for children,
benefits in their behavioral conduct and social adjustment, and the higher
sense of competence and effectiveness in daughters. On the whole, these
research results suggest that most families accommodate to the mother's
employment and in doing so provide a family environment that works well. In
two-parent families, the fathers take on a larger share of the household tasks
and child care and this seems to have benefits for the children. In the
working class, employed mothers indicated a higher level of well-being than
full-time homemakers and this, in turn, affects their parenting in positive
ways. Even in the middle-class, where employed mothers did not show a
higher level of well-being, neither did they show a lower one. While the
quality and stability of nonmaternal care for infants and young children is
important, the mother's employment itself does not seem to have the
negative effects often proclaimed

Others
Traditional gender roles which viewed male as breadwinner and female as
homemaker, have changed over the time and there has been an increase in
families headed by two working spouses (Perrone, Wright & Jackson, 2009)
and support to this notion keeps increasing (Gallup Pakistan, 2009). In few of
the societies due to men and women both being working, men have started
contributing to household chores (Lewis, 2012) still in many societies, due to
their culturally determined gender Ideologies (Reeves & Baden, 2000) the
responsibility of child care and other family members, remains with women
(Barksdale, (n.d.) and they are faced with juggling the role of mother, partner
and daughter as well as employee (Austen & Birch, 2000)

Bibliography
Rout, Usha R.; Cooper, Cary L. & Kerslake, Helen. Working and non-working
mothers: a comparative study. Women in Management Review. Volume
12(264-275). 1997.
McIntosh Kelly, Bauer William. (2006) Working Mothers Vs Stay At Home
Mothers: The Impact On Children.
Gershaw, D. (1988). Working Mothers and Their Children. A Line on Life.
Austen, S. E., & Birch, E. R. (2000). Family Responsibilities and Women's
Working Lives. Perth.
Associated Press. (March 1, 1999). Mothers work outside home doesnt hurt
child. Washington Times.
Hoffman (1998), The Effects of the Mother's Employment on the Family and
the Child, Parenthood in America