Blue bars show results from New York Times/CBS News poll conducted May 31-June 4, 2013, and refer to share of all survey respondents who are parents of children under 18. Green bars show 2013 Labor Department data, and refer to share of total civilian noninstitutional population of parents who live with their own children (including stepchildren and adopted children). Unemployed workers could be looking for part-time work or full-time work.
Among fathers, 16 percent say they’d ideally stay at home, if money were no object. Just 7 percent of them are actually abstaining from the labor force. Now look at mothers: 22 percent say they would ideally like to stay at home and not work, while 30 percent actually do so.
In other words more dads say they want to stay at home than actually do, and fewer moms say they want to stay at home than actually do. Both genders also have much stronger stated preferences for working part time than their real-life work arrangements suggest, with nearly a third of fathers and half of mothers saying their ideal work status would be part time.
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