Trade-off Between Leisure and "Leaning in": What Can Government Help?

Summary:
    In this post, I am going to talk about how government can positively influence on the trade-off between "more leisure time" and "leaning in".


According to Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, "30 years after women became 50% of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions in government and industry." Despite what we’re led to believe these days, as it turns out, women’s voices are still not equally represented in major aspects of business and how the world runs. Sheryl Sandberg advocate that pursuing personal fulfillment and gender-equal representation, women should actively engage in their career and strive for a "shared earning / shared parenting marriage".

Meanwhile, according to statistics in Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte, an award-winning journalist for the Washington Post and Washington Post magazine, American mothers have only about thirty-six minutes a day of leisure time that is spent in "pure" or child-free time to themselves. She discusses how time pressure and modern life have led to a constant feeling of being overwhelmed and to a constant sense of urgency, which is affecting our health and other physical and mental aspects. 

Seems like there's a conflict, or let's say trade-off: women lose their leisure time to themselves if they start stepping up work, yet failed to achieve their personal career goal if they have enough leisure time to enjoy lives. Two female author's different focuses somewhat indicate varying value and attitude of women. Both of them are looking for way to share parenting, the former ask for more time to work, while the latter to relax. In Denmark, the world's happiest country, it's possible to work short, productive, flexible hours and still be successful, committed workers and attentive parents. An Australian sociologist Lyn Craig found that Danish women have the most leisure time of mothers. One and a half hours of a Danish mother's leisure time every day is spent in "pure" or child-free time to themselves - as much as an hour more of leisure a day than mothers in the United States. So the issue is a bit clearer now: how can women set themselves free from child-care and housework, so that they can spend more at work or in relaxation? 

I believe that there are things government can do to help women achieve this goal. Danish policy allows mothers to take 18 weeks of maternal leave and fathers to receive their own dedicated 2 weeks at up to 100%, and provides the family additional 32 hours of paid time off to use as they see fit. This policy makes way for "shared parenting marriage" by giving parental leave to the family instead of merely to the mother. Now the family have the chance to think of the best plan for both child-caring and career fulfillment.

What's more, Danish children have access to free or low-cost child care, which frees up young mothers to return to the work force if they'd like to. Policy also ensures 79% of Danish mothers who take parental leave resume work to the same extent as before, compared to 59% of American women. It is no longer a stressful work to take good care of children and their school work, and it is no longer risky to do so. This policy really give the mother the right to choose whether she enjoys spending time with her children or she insist to "lean in". Neither of these option is risky. 

As a result of these helpful resources, women contribute 34~38% of income in Danish households with children, compared to American women, who contribute 28% of income. It is true that the more the mother is earning, the better chance she can speak up and take part in family decision making. I believe that when the mother's opinion weights more in a family, the couple is more likely to behave collaboratively in child-care issues.

(EU - Denmark: Combining work and family life successfully: http://europa.eu/epic/countries/denmark/index_en.htm)