BALANCING ACT:  NEW STUDY DOCUMENTS HOW CONFLICTING PRESSURES ON
WOMEN AND FAMILIES ARE A NATIONAL ISSUE 

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Sept. 11 -- The 1960s and 70s were
watershed decades for American women in making progress toward
gender equality. But some of the most significant changes in women's
lives, including achievements and a new urgency about many families'
economic and emotional needs, have been occurring in recent years,
according to a new book by two policy analysts.
	This turn-of-the-century era holds a promise of further
progress but also many conflicting pressures, say the authors,
Daphne Spain, associate professor of urban planning at the
University of Virginia, and Suzanne M. Bianchi, a sociologist at the
University of Maryland, who have analyzed masses of demographic data
to identify trends in women's lives concerning marriage,
childbearing, employment and earnings. 
	In their book "Balancing Act: Motherhood, Marriage and
Employment Among American Women," published by the Russell Sage
Foundation, Spain and Bianchi cite several crucial developments in
women's lives in the past decade. With divorce and births to
unmarried mothers, the growing incidence of motherhood outside of
marriage is unprecedented in the United States, they say, and as a
result "women now spend longer periods of time as mothers than as
spouses."
In addition, more women today delay childbearing until their
thirties, and then they often return to work immediately after their
child's birth. As a result, women's ties to the labor force are
strengthening. "In the portrait of contemporary women's lives,
children are in the foreground, marriage is in the background, and
employment occupies an ever-expanding middle landscape," the
researchers say. 
	A primary theme of their findings is that most women now
perform a variety of paid and unpaid jobs each day rather than
specializing in motherhood at one stage of life and employment at
another. "If women at the end of the 19th century felt constrained
by a lack of choice, women at the end of the 20th century sometimes
express dismay at the endless array of choices they must make."
	¥ Among their findings in analyzing demographic data from
the past three decades:
	¥ The percentage of full-time working mothers who have their
children in day-care centers increased from 8 percent in 1965 to 28
percent in 1991.
	¥ Half of mothers with infants under a year old are working
outside the home.
	¥ The number of babies born to unmarried women rose to 33
percent in 1993 from 20 percent in 1980.
	¥ The income level of 40 percent of unwed mothers falls
below the poverty level, as opposed to 15 percent for all women with
children. 
	¥ Half of single mothers get some child support, but only
half of those receive the full awards they are supposed to get. 
	¥ The wage gap between women and men is declining, with
women now earning on average 71 cents to every dollar men earn. But
one reason the gap is narrowing is that men's salaries are
declining. 
	¥ At 23 percent, the percentage of women in the 25-34 age
range who have a college degree now equals that for men, and women's
college enrollment now exceeds that for men.
	Women's increased work experience and educational experience
are the major factors in the wage gap narrowing more in the last
decade than in any previous period, Spain and Bianchi say. 
	On the other hand "affirmative action and the protection of
reproductive rights -- policies that helped close gender gaps in
education and earnings -- now seem more politically vulnerable than
a decade ago," the authors say. "Nevertheless we believe that women
are making slow steady 
progress toward equality with men."
	Women's "balancing act," with obligations of family and
personal life on one side and demands of the workplace on the other,
and how to resolve these conflicting and often overwhelming forces,
are the central challenges of women's lives today, the authors say. 
	"The growing proportion of mothers in the labor force is no
longer remarkable. What is remarkable is how little has been done to
assist families with often conflicting responsibilities, how
routinely the problems associated with juggling jobs and children
are identified as a 'women's issue' not national one, and how
persistent is the unequal division of labor within the home. The
barriers that remain, therefore, are as important as the progress of
the past decade." 
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September 10, 1996
	For interviews Daphne Spain may be reached at (804)
296-6577; Suzanne Bianchi may be reached at (301) 405-6409.