Women Want Now (Gibbs, 2009)

¶ … women want now (Gibbs, 2009) and the Shriver report: A woman's nation changes everything (Shriver, M. & the Center for American Progress) focus on more women moving into the labor force even though many more have been unpaid members of the labor force for centuries. Therefore, this paper focuses on what the future will look like now that women are actually being paid for their work. Today, nearly 39.3% of mothers are primary breadwinners, bringing home the majority of the family's earnings, and nearly two-thirds are breadwinners or co-breadwinners, bringing home at least a quarter of the family's earnings (Shriver, M. & the Center for American Progress). This newly found financial stature will have a number of implications for society.

In the future, women will have even more power in the family. Already, women are controlling the financial shots in the household with 65% of women reporting being their family's chief financial planner, and 71% calling themselves the family accountant (Gibbs, 2009). Further, they make 75% of the buying decisions in American homes (Gibbs, 2009). With regards to non-financial decisions, 84% of people say that husbands and wives negotiate the rules, relationships and responsibilities more than those of earlier generations did (Gibbs, 2009). These statistics are interesting on a number of fronts. it's long known that financial reasons are among the leading causes of divorce. So, the question is whether increasing financial strength will leaves women feeling less vulnerable and less prone to divorce or will it encourage them to seek freedom? The later scenario seems most likely given that: women have become less happy (Gibbs, 2009); between1973 and 2006, the share of all families headed by an unmarried woman rose to one in five from 1 in 10; men may be increasing their role in child care, but still lag behind the contribution of women (Shriver, M. & the Center for American Progress).

Yet, another interesting trend is that more women are choosing to invest in their careers and delay motherhood into their 30s and 40s (Shriver, M. & the Center for American Progress). What's not discussed is that this means that the child will not be out of the house until the woman is close to 50 or 60 years old and how these older mothers will be able to cope given they will be raising children at the time their careers are peaking and their energy levels are declining. Perhaps this will change the types of working arrangements women have with employers such as more job sharing, part-time employment, and telecommuting. and, older women could experience higher stress levels that younger working mothers.