According to a study by Janeen Baxter, professor of sociology at the University of Queensland, Australians are less inclined to believe a working mother can be as good a mother as one who stays at home full-time and they believe if the husband is the main breadwinner and the wife cares for home and children, it works for the best.
Professor Baxter said, “These developments may not be sufficient to warrant the term 'backlash' but they indicate some rethinking of the goals of the feminist movement for equal opportunity.” For the study the team tracked responses to five almost identical questions on gender equality from different groups over five periods between 1986 and 2005. The findings showed that both men and women had increasingly egalitarian views until the mid '90s. Since then the inclination is towards the idea that “ideally there should be as many women as men in important positions in government and business” and “there should be satisfactory childcare facilities so that women can take jobs outside the home.”
41 per cent of men endorsed the male breadwinner model in 2005 compared with 29.6 per cent in 2001. And 74 per cent of women in 2005 thought at-home mothers were better for children compared with 57 per cent in 2001. However on the flip side increasing numbers believed “if both husband and wife work, they should share equally in the housework and childcare.”
According to Baxter this contradictory view that women who are involved in paid work are not good mothers may explain why women were delaying or forgoing childbirth. “If women, like men, think good mothering means full-time care of children, then it's difficult to reconcile with paid employment,” she said. She went on to say that the option of part time work for the mother means that she would still be doing most of the childcare and housework. “In the absence of policies that support a reasonable work-life balance, it's been very difficult for men and women to share care and paid work equally…You can understand why women in particular might be ambivalent and questioning of some goals of the women's movement.”
Professor Baxter said that she was looking forward to Howard government's tax and social policies. “It will be interesting to do this research after paid parental leave comes in next year…Will it make it more possible and therefore more desirable for men and women to share parenting and paid work more equally?” she asked.
The study will soon be published in the Journal of Population Research.
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