Moms Look to Part-Time Work

Young women with children are more interested in job flexibility than their boomer moms were: 60% of employed moms would like to work part-time, rather than full-time or no job at all—up 12% from a decade ago, a new study shows. But only 24% of those surveyed actually work part-time.

One factor may be the increasingly common workweek of 50 hours or more, at the same time that child raising has become what the Washington Post calls a more intensive enterprise. The same study found that most fathers (72%) said full-time work was their ideal. "We have the luxury of making these choices because of all the blood, sweat and tears our mothers put in," says one woman.