Money-Rich and Time-Poor: Life in Two-Income Households 有錢無閑的雙收入家庭

麗貝卡·J.羅森

The first thing to note about families with two parents working full-time is that having two incomes is pretty sweet， financially speaking.

These families take in an average of $102，400 annually， according to a Pew survey of two-parent households released today. Families in which dad works and mom stays home make about half that—$55，000.

But of course that extra 50 grand doesn’t come free. These women are selling their time， and they don’t have much of it left. According to Pew， both moms and dads in two-earner households report feeling pressed for time. Forty percent of moms working full-time “say they always feel rushed.” Half of dads who work full-time say they don’t get enough time with their kids. （The Pew study included same-sex couples， but there weren’t enough to break out separate data for.）

This is a group of people who have been working longer and longer hours over the last few decades. According to Claire Cain Miller of The New York Times， today workers in the 60th to 95th percentiles of earners work the most hours of any group—2，015 hours in 2013， up 5 percent since 1979.

According to Pew， the burden is falling heavily on moms， who continue to do more than half of a household’s housework and parenting （though two-earner families do share duties more evenly than those where only one member works， understandably）.

The statistics on this are a bit of a mess， as moms and dads report different household divisions of labor， both when it comes to chores and parenting. Dads are more likely to see the division as equal， and it can be tricky business to sort out who’s right. （My husband likes to say that the work is probably evenly split if both partners feel like they are doing upward of 60 percent of the work， since a lot of what one partner does is necessarily invisible to the other partner. If you feel like you are doing half， you’re not.）

Josh Levs， the author of All In： How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads， Families， and Businesses—And How We Can Fix It Together， additionally told me that although the survey compared moms and dads who work full-time， that doesn’t mean that they are working the same number of hours. Men are more likely to be putting in extra hours at the office， a fact that has the additional consequence of inhibiting women’s career achievements. So an uneven divide of labor at home may be a reflection of sexism in the workplace， not laziness on the parts of dads.

Whatever the exact breakdown （and in my experience squabbling over that breakdown is never worth it）， these parents are stressed and harried， struggling to bring their family lives into alignment with their work lives.

But this feeling—this feeling not of not having it all but of simply having way too much—doesn’t stem from a simple insufficiency of hours. As Jerry A. Jacobs and Kathleen Gerson wrote in their book The Time Divide， “The sense of overload that many workers feel is a response not just to long weeks but also to increased expectations on the job as well as at home.” Work is often grueling and home isn’t easy either—kids， especially the kids of highly educated high earners， are heavily scheduled themselves. There’s a lot of pressure， not just a lot of tasks to get through.

Many of these high-earning stress cases could， at least in theory， opt to give up some of their earnings and have more “balance.” But they wouldn’t only be losing income： Work—especially the sort these high-earners are doing—can provide a sense of purpose， not to mention a change of pace from being home day in and day out. Stay-at-home moms in the postwar period resorted to tranquilizers to deal with their loneliness， boredom， and isolation.

Another alternative， if egalitarianism is a priority， is for both parents to scale back their careers and manage with less， but that too may mean less fulfilling work and providing children with fewer opportunities than is “possible”—and for many that’s a nonstarter.

The shame is that even for the parents who are prosperous， those are the choices available.

It wasn’t that long ago that people expected it would soon be otherwise. In the early 20th century， the annual number of hours spent working was on the decline， even as prosperity was rising. And many expected that trend to continue， leading to concerns about too much leisure. As Juliet Schor wrote in her 1992 book The Overworked American：

By the late 1950s， the problem of excessive working hours had been solved—at least in the minds of the experts. The four-day week was thought to “l(fā)oom on the immediate horizon.” It was projected that economic progress would yield steady reductions in working time. By today， it was estimated that we could have either a twenty-two-hour week， a six-month work year， or a standard retirement age of thirty-eight.

These prospects worried the experts. In 1959 the Harvard Business Review announced that “boredom， which used to bother only aristocrats， had become a common curse.” What would ordinary Americans do with all that extra time？ How would housewives cope with having their husbands around the house for three- or four-day weekends？ The pending crisis of leisure came in for intensive scrutiny. Foundations funded research projects on it. The American Council of Churches met on the issue of spare time. Institutes and Departments of Leisure Studies cropped up as academia prepared for the onslaught of free time. There were many like Harvard sociologist David Riesman who wrote about “play” in the lonely crowd and the “abyss” and “stultification” of mass leisure.

But， as Schor continues， “The leisure scare died out as the abyss of free time failed to appear.” These dual-earner couples know that all too well.

首先要說的是，父母全職工作的家庭意味著會有兩份收入。從經(jīng)濟角度來說，這確實不錯。

皮尤研究中心關(guān)于雙親家庭目前發(fā)布的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，雙收入家庭年均收入達10.24萬美元。而父親工作母親持家的家庭，年均收入大約只有一半，即5.5萬美元。

當(dāng)然，多出來的5萬美元并非白來的——這些女性是出售了自己的時間，空余的時間因而所剩無幾。皮尤調(diào)查顯示，雙收入家庭的父母都感覺時間緊迫。40%全職工作的媽媽“總覺得很匆忙”。一半全職工作的爸爸說他們沒有足夠時間和孩子相處。（皮尤調(diào)查還涵蓋了同性伴侶，但由于數(shù)據(jù)不足不在此單獨列舉。）

近幾十年來，這個群體的工作時間越來越長?！都~約時報》的克萊爾·凱恩·米勒提到，收入在百分位排名60到95的人，他們的工作時間是最長的，2013年達到了2015個小時，比1979年增加了5%。

皮尤數(shù)據(jù)顯示，擔(dān)子重重壓在了媽媽肩上，她們?nèi)砸摀?dān)大部分的家務(wù)和對孩子的照顧（不過可以理解，和那些只有一人工作的家庭相比，雙收入家庭確實會更平均地分擔(dān)家務(wù)）。

這部分的數(shù)據(jù)有點混亂，因為說到做家務(wù)、帶孩子，爸爸媽媽說出來的工作量不一致。爸爸更有可能認為承擔(dān)的工作量是均衡的，其實很難說出誰對誰錯。（我丈夫常說，如果兩個人都認為自己承擔(dān)了60%，那么家務(wù)活可能是平均分配的。因為一方干的很多活另一方往往看不見。如果你認為你做了一半，則實際上并非如此。）

喬希·列夫又對我說，盡管這一調(diào)查對比了全職工作的父母，但并不意味著父母用于工作的時間是一樣的。喬?！ち蟹蚴恰督钇ＡΡM：工作至上的文化如何使父難為、家難系、業(yè)難成？如何搞定這一切？》的作者。事實上，男性更有可能長時間地待在辦公室，這是制約女性職場成就的另一原因。因此家務(wù)承擔(dān)不均有可能是職場性別歧視的體現(xiàn)，而并非是爸爸的懶惰所致。

不管究竟如何分擔(dān)（就我的經(jīng)驗而言，為此爭論毫無價值），這些為人父母者都壓力在身、煩擾不斷，他們既要維持職場生涯，同時也要努力讓家庭生活井井有條。

但這種并非無法面面俱到而是單純頭緒過多的感覺并不只是時間不足帶來的。正如杰瑞·A.雅各布斯和凱瑟琳·格爾森在《時間分配》一書中寫的那樣：“很多人感到超負荷，不僅是長時間工作的結(jié)果，還與家庭和工作中日益增長的期望值有關(guān)?！惫ぷ鞒３Ａ钊司Ａ撸彝ド钜膊蝗菀?。孩子，尤其是高學(xué)歷、高收入人群的孩子，日程安排都非常緊張。他們不僅要完成很多任務(wù)，還承受了巨大的壓力。

至少從理論上來說，很多倍感壓力的高收入人群可以通過選擇放棄部分收入來獲得更多“平衡”。但是，這樣一來，他們失去的就不僅僅是收入了。工作能帶給人使命感，尤其是這些高薪人士所從事的工作。從整日在家到外出工作，這還意味著生活節(jié)奏的變化。戰(zhàn)后，全職媽媽們曾求助于鎮(zhèn)定劑來排遣自己的孤獨寂寞、百無聊賴。

如果采用均等優(yōu)先的原則，還有一種選擇，就是父母二人都縮短工作時間，減少要處理的事務(wù)，但是這也可能意味著工作成就感降低，給孩子提供的機會也比“可能”得到的要少。對許多人來說，不會做這樣的選擇。

可惜的是，甚至那些成功的父母也只有這些選擇。

然而，就在不久以前，人們的期待恰恰相反。20世紀初，即使在財富不斷增長的情況下，人們年均工作時間仍在持續(xù)減少。很多人希望這種趨勢一直保持，這引發(fā)了社會對過度悠閑問題的擔(dān)憂。朱麗葉·肖爾在1992年的《勞累過度的美國人》一書中寫道：

到20世紀50年代末，工作時間過長的問題已經(jīng)得到解決，至少專家們認為如此。他們斷定，一周4個工作日已“指日可待”。他們構(gòu)想，經(jīng)濟增長會使工作時間逐漸減少。按照構(gòu)想算到今天，人們一周工作22小時，一年工作6個月，或者在38歲正常退休。

這些設(shè)想令專家們憂心忡忡。1959年，《哈佛商業(yè)評論》刊物宣稱：“無聊，這種過去貴族才有的苦惱，已經(jīng)成了司空見慣的魔咒?！倍喑鰜淼倪@些時間里，普通的美國民眾會做些什么呢？丈夫們會有三到四天的周末時光，整天待在家里，家庭主婦們又將如何與丈夫相處呢？這即將來臨的閑暇危機引起了密切而謹慎的關(guān)注?；饡峁┵Y金，開展相關(guān)項目的研究。美國教會理事會成員討論了空閑時間的問題。學(xué)術(shù)界為了應(yīng)對大量閑暇時光帶給人的困惑，紛紛成立了休閑研究所。哈佛大學(xué)社會學(xué)家戴維·里斯曼撰文探討了人們?nèi)绾卧诠陋毜娜巳褐小巴嫠！?，他還認為，大量的空閑時間會導(dǎo)致人們陷入“深淵”“思維遲緩”。像他這樣的不乏其人。

但是，肖爾接著說道：“結(jié)果沒有出現(xiàn)空閑的‘深淵’，過度悠閑帶來的恐懼也就消亡了。”這一點，那些雙收入夫妻再清楚不過。

（譯者單位：浙江農(nóng)林大學(xué)外國語學(xué)院）