Forty-Three Percent of Working Moms Would Take a Pay Cut to Spend More Time with Their Kids, CareerBuilder.com’s Annual Mother’s Day Survey Finds

Chief Sales Officer and Mother of Three Offers Tips for Gaining a Better Work/Life Balance

Chicago.- As working moms schedule family time on May 11, many will be hoping to receive the one present you can’t buy at a store - more quality time with their families. Of the 43 percent of working moms who said they would take a pay cut if it meant they could spend more time with their kids, 34 percent stated they would be willing to give up ten percent or more of their salaries, according to a new CareerBuilder.com survey of 880 women, employed full-time, with children under the age of 18 living at home. For working moms with more than one source of income, just over half (51 percent) of working moms indicated they would leave their job if their spouse or significant other made enough money to support the entire family.


While moms strive to keep a healthy balance between their professional and personal lives, lack of time with their children still seems to be an issue. More than a third (34 percent) of working moms said they spend less than three hours per day with their children. Seventeen percent reported they had missed three or more significant events in their child’s life in the last year. Twenty-seven percent had missed two or more.

Even when working moms are at home, work can still get in the way of family time. Sixteen percent of working moms reported bringing work home at least three days a week, while one-in-five said work comes home with them every workday. Close to a quarter (24 percent) said work had negatively impacted the relationships they have with their children.

“More than 25 percent of working moms are dissatisfied with their work/life balance,” said Mary Delaney, chief sales officer at CareerBuilder.com and mother of three. “As companies continue to experience a tighter labor market, the importance of retaining star employees is requiring them to implement benefits that actually encourage workers to improve the balance between their professional and family lives. From flexible work schedules to job sharing to telecommuting, company-wide work/life initiatives are becoming much more universal.”

Delaney recommends the following tips for managing the working mom balancing act:

1. Sell your boss on a more flexible work schedule - Start by contacting your human resources department or consulting the employee manual to determine whether your company has a telecommuting program already in place. If one exists, you can build your proposal on actual policies.


2. Keep one calendar - Unfortunately it’s often easier to cancel on your child than on a potential client. Scheduling business and family obligations on the same calendar will lessen your chances of forgetting a personal commitment when you’re planning work activities. It will also help you avoid over-scheduling and alert you if your commitments are unbalanced.

3. Make time for family - Schedule activities for only your family on the weekends and when possible during the week. Also, try to schedule a few minutes each day to call your children to talk about their school day as well as plans for the evening.

4. Slow down - Stop and enjoy the activities and people around you, both inside and outside the office. Whenever possible, schedule time between meetings and leave your evenings free so you can refuel throughout and at the end of each day. Resist the urge to bring too many projects home over the weekends.

5. Share responsibilities - No matter how efficient you are, there is only so much you can accomplish in one day. If you’re a manager, make sure that you are delegating appropriately instead of trying to do everything yourself. Doing so will reduce your workload and help your staff build their skills.

Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 880 U.S. female employees (employed full-time; not self-employed with at least one child under 18 years old living at home) between February 11, and March 13, 2008, respectively. Percentages for some questions are based on a subset of responses to certain questions. With a pure probability sample of 880 one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 3.3 percentage points. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.