Priorities

Research shows that most young women still make motherhood a priority.

It happens that the Center for American Progress also released a report this week that makes clear many mothers currently in the labor force have not “chosen” that route. It’s been an economic necessity.

“In 2010 there were more female breadwinners in the United States than in any year since data began being collected. This is partially due to women’s record rate of employment, men’s continued high rates of unemployment, and men’s declining wages,” says the report. (E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote more about that report in The Post.)

But the harsher realities of family life have not doused the expectations and priorities of the younger set. While majorities of both men and women surveyed by Pew cited career as a top priority, many more cited being a good parent and having a successful marriage as important.

In fact, younger women, cited family and parenting as a higher priority than ever before. The share of young women who rate parenting as a top priority has increased 17 percentage points in recent years. “Thus, the increased importance women are now placing on their careers has not come at the expense of the importance they place on marriage and family,” according to Pew. (Read entire article.)

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