Moms married with children hardly fit the Peg Bundy type portrayed in the hit TV show Married with Children. Here are more stats following a recent post about how Stay-at-Home Moms are presenting yet another challenge in employer’s quest to find skilled workers.
Almost three in 10 mothers with children under 18 living with them are stay-at-home moms.
- 20 percent of all married mothers with children under 18 stay home — half what it was in 1970.
- One in five children in the United States today lives with a stay-at-home mother married to a working husband. In 1970, 41 percent of children did.
Married mothers accounted for much of the increase in total labor force participation during the post-World War II period (1946-2000).
- In 1948, only about 17 percent of married mothers were in the labor force
- In 1985, 61 percent of married mothers were working or looking for work
- By 1995, their labor force participation rate had reached 70 percent.
Married mothers aged 25 and older with infants are well educated, on average.
- Nearly half (47 percent) had a college degree, compared with 35 percent of all married mothers of that age group.
- Another 26 percent of married mothers of infants had completed 1 to 3 years of college, compared with 29 percent of all mothers.
- After peaking at 71 percent in 1997, the participation rate of those women married with infants and holding a college degree had fallen by about 9 percentage points by 2000.
- In comparison, the participation rate for mothers with less than a high school diploma fell by 8 percentage points, as did the rate for those with some college.
Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center
