Despite more females in the workforce, women take more responsibility for domestic life, according to a new feature story from Pew Research. To break down the data and the social trends behind it, Drew welcomed Harvard-trained economist from Catholic University of America, Catherine Pakaluk, onto The Drew Mariani Show.

According to Pew, economic parity in marriage has increased. “The share of marriages where the husband and wife earn about the same amount of money has roughly tripled to 29% over the past 50 years, as has the share of couples where the wife is the sole or primary breadwinner (now at 16%).”

Pakaluk told Drew, paraphrasing St. Edith Stein, that many women do a “second shift” when they get home from work. “They gravitate to it; they tend to have higher domestic standards,” she told Drew. “They have higher standards, but they’re also very good at it. So, that isn’t going to change.”

There’s a deeper spiritual aspect at play too, Pakaluk argues. “I think that women do have this orientation towards beauty in the home, that’s part…of their mission from God.”

Societal Expectations

The researchers at Pew suggest the imbalance of caregiving can be partially attributed to societal values. “A 57% majority say society values men’s contributions at work more than their efforts at home. Only 20% say the same about women.”

The challenge of balancing both work and home life led some respondents to say one or the other suffers. In a recent survey from Pew, 67% of mothers and 50% of fathers said they could not give 100% at home because of responsibilities at work.

Soft Traditionalism

Pakaluk thinks expectations of total marital egalitarianism can be unreasonable.

She noted that in many Mormon, Jewish, and Catholic households there’s more natural arrangement. “We do see families that want to have children gravitating towards, not a hard traditional arrangement, but like a soft one, the kind that I have where both spouses tend to work a little bit, but he works more and she does more caregiving.”