Isn't anyone a SAHM anymore?
Here's a quiz that might surprise even the most seasoned mom marketer.
How much likelier is it that a woman without a child works than a woman with a child over age 1?
20% likelier?
30% likelier?
50% likelier?
How about not at all likelier! I myself was shocked to learn from the US Census Bureau statistics that 72% of women with a child over the age of 1 work: the very same rate as women without children in the home.
Now I confess that the reason I was searching out these statistics was a nagging feeling that working moms were becoming more commonplace. I just hadn't realized how much things were changing. In 1976, only 39% of women with children over the age of 1 held a job outside the home.
What lead to my hunch that SAHM were becoming less common? A lot of different things, ranging from:
1). Websites sprouting up like HireMyMom.com and momcorps.com.
2). A flood of books garnering headlines, ranging from the provocative Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World, to the hopeful Getting to 50/50, to the thought-provoking Mama PhD, to the insightful Mothers on the Fast Track.
3). A recent Talk of the Nation segment about the explosion of online education, perhaps the most family-friendly on-ramp for women seeking to brush up their skills and return to the workforce.
So women are juggling motherhood and career more than ever. Which means that the What's Your Blanket? philosophy of Maternal Instinct is more relevant than ever.
What are you doing to care for the caretaker? How might you alter your message or your product to make it even more appealing to a mom in the workforce? If you were to look at your company's depiction of moms -- in both photography and copy -- might it reflect an outdated notion? Really get granular in your assessment. Are you timing your email or twitter blasts to coincide with a working mom's rhythms? Are you putting mobile marketing to work?
If not, then by all means: get to work.
Labels: US Census Bureau, Working Mothers
Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.
posted by Kat Gordon @ 2:48 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Interesting stuff. I just looked through Parents magazine and counted how many ads showed women in working situations. Only one!
I am not surprised, you are hard pressed to find a mom in the park these days...Frankly it is harder to stay at home with kids then to work an outside job.
Cricket and Anonymous,
Thanks for your comments. I concur that staying home with young kids can be far more challenging than going to work and being able to go to the bathroom when you choose and find things exactly where you left them on your desk.
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