Working Mom vs Stay at Home Mom

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Working Mother vs Stay at Home Mother. Maternal employment is a topic which can generate an interesting and emotional debate. It is a topic which is almost certainly the preserve of maternal and not paternal employment. It is also a debate for which there isn’t one answer. Are children better off or worse off if their mother works? Is a child more likely to live in poverty if the mother does not work? Does the age of the child when a mother works make a difference? What are the long-term effects? Some arguments from the articles may be based on the traditional roles of women as housekeepers and nurturers. Working Mothers The government in 1997, pledged to eradicate child poverty by 2020 and half it by 2010 (Katz et.al.,2007). They also began to promote the view that employment would provide the best route out of poverty. This belief has shaped the development of government policy which has resulted in measures being brought in to make it easier for parents to work by introducing changes to the benefit system and the laws to make work more flexible to fit around the caring commitments of parents. The introduction of The Working Tax Credit aimed to ease the withdrawal from benefits and to enable parents to take up low paid work which would not be financially viable otherwise. Families have also seen the introduction of 12.5 hours free childcare per week for 3-4 year olds. Together with other measures such as the introduction of the National Minimum Wage and the changes to the incapacity system to the new Employment and Support Allowance, demonstrate that the government is eager to get more people working. Although, financial reward is unlikely to be the sole driver for mothers to go to work, it is an important one. This is where mothers need to balance the equation of receiving benefits and earning a wage. Simmonds and Bivand, 2008,
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