University of Oregon Sociologist Scott Coltrane and colleagues correctly stated that there is a “mismatch between the workplace and workforce” in the United States today. While about half of American families in the 1970s had a breadwinning father and a homemaking mother, only about one-third of families today fit that description. Dual-earner couples have become the norm in American society, thanks to women’s expanded workforce participation; both partners work in 59.1 percent of married couples with children, and 68.2 percent of single mothers are also employed outside the home. The continued workforce participation of mothers with preschool-aged children has dramatically affected work and family life; in 2013, 63.9 percent of mothers with children younger than age 6 were in the labor force.
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