Ted S. Warren / AP file

The value of a mother's work has decreased since Jenna Kagan homeschooled her then 6-year-old son Hunter. Taking care of house and family would cost roughly $59,000 to have someone else do, a research group found using government data.

If moms earned wages for the work they do around the house and with the kids, they’d be getting a pay cut this year.

The take-home pay that a mother would earn for everything from cooking to handling the family finances would total at $59,862 if she were paid on the open market, according to Insure.com’s analysis of government data on hourly wages.

That’s down from $60,182 in 2012 and $61,436 in 2011, Insure.com’s annual Mother’s Day Index shows.

The drop is because typical wages for some domestic jobs have fallen, said Amy Danise, a spokeswoman for Insure.com.

The Mother’s Day Index tallies 14 jobs that moms might perform, including cooking, driving, cleaning and taking care of the kids, and then looks at Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data for those tasks. Danise said the website compiled its list by brainstorming about typical mothers’ tasks, and coming up with a typical number of hours she might spend on them.

By Insure.com’s tally, a mom’s average work week would be significantly longer than 40 hours - although most moms would probably also agree that parenting requires far longer hours than your average desk job.

The total does not include the wages that moms earn for paid work they do outside the home. 

The Insure.com data is not meant to be a rigorous analysis of the value of domestic work.

“It’s more like a fun way of looking at serious topic,” Danise said.

But some economists have taken a more serious look at the value of housework. A report released last year by the government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis found that adding “nonmarket household production” to the nation’s gross domestic product would have raised nominal GDP by 39 percent in 1965 and 26 percent in 2010.

That figure would include jobs such as cooking, cleaning and child care that both men and women do around the house.

The decline in the contribution to GDP is because the hours women spent on housework fell from 40 hours per week in 1965 to 26 hours per week in 2010, and more women entered the paid workforce. That more than offset the increase, from 14 hours in 1965 to 17 hours per week in 2010, that men spent on domestic tasks.

This story was originally published on Mon May 6, 2013 7:41 PM EDT

 Though the media has focused on the plight of unemployed dads, it’s moms who are suffering the most in the current recession, a new study shows. 

The study, which looked at the outcomes for laid-off workers across the United States, found that married women with kids spent more time in-between jobs than married dads.

Making matters worse for the moms was the big pay cut they took once they finally found a job: On average moms lost $175 per week more than dads, according to the study, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

For the study, co-author Michelle Maroto, an assistant professor in the sociology department at the University of Alberta, scrutinized four sets of data from the Displaced Workers Supplement, a nationally representative survey conducted by the Census Bureau every other year.

The 2010 survey, for example, included nearly 4,400 displaced workers (people who had been laid off or lost a job because of a plant closing), who took an average of 17 weeks to find a new job.

When the researchers broke down the data according to marital and parental status, they found that moms experienced a significant “motherhood penalty” while fathers got a “daddy bonus.”

Maroto’s data doesn’t offer explanations as to why moms are taking such a big hit, but there have been hints from experimental studies.

Recent research has shown that employers will choose a dad over a mom because they fear that moms won’t be as available or committed to the job, Maroto says.

The assumption is that moms are more likely than dads to make the family their top priority. So, if a child gets sick, it will be the mom, and not the dad, who takes time off from work.

Intriguingly, employers are more likely to hire single women than a single man. Maroto wasn’t sure what to make of that. But, she points out, when single men and single women do find new jobs, they take an equal hit to their salaries – which ends up being a lot larger, by $123 per week, than that experienced by married men

For women who fear they might be in danger of suffering from the motherhood penalty when looking for a new job, Maroto has some advice: Don’t volunteer anything about your family in job applications and interviews. 

“What I’d say to mothers with children is that you don’t necessarily have to disclose your personal details when you’re applying for a job,” she says. “It’s definitely not something you want to indicate on our resume.” 

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Brian Snyder / Reuters file

According to a survey, 52 percent of dads say they are the primary supermarket shoppers in the household.

There’s a good chance dad might be shopping for his own Father’s Day breakfast in bed this Sunday. No, he’s not in the doghouse, but apparently dads are doing more of the grocery shopping these days.

According to a survey released this week by brand marketing firm Cone Communications, 52 percent of dads say they are the primary supermarket shoppers in the household, and 35 percent of moms admitted fathers have more influence when it comes to grocery purchases. 

“This research goes against all stereotypes of the ‘Father Knows Best’ dad who doesn’t concern himself with domestic responsibilities,” says Bill Fleishman, president of Cone Communications, about the online survey that polled 1,000 parents with children under 17.

The company’s research also found dad shoppers aren’t just winging their supermarket hunting. Dad’s polled said they:

• Create a detailed shopping list – 63% (vs. 65% of moms)
• Collect coupons or read circulars – 56% (vs. 62% of moms)
• Plan meals for the week ahead of time – 52% (vs. 46% of moms)
• Perform background research on grocery products – 24% (vs. 11% of moms)

And moms are more likely to spend more time in the grocery store than dads. While Cone’s study found fathers were doing more of the grocery shopping, Today Money Facebook fans we informally polled Friday largely said the opposite it true.

“If my husband went to the store we would be having frozen pizza and macaroni and cheese for dinner every night,” said Mariska Colbert of her husband Zac.

And Melissa Klement added, “Wish my hubby would do it.”

But Roberta Harwood Speller, who works in a grocery store said: “There are several men that shop each week there for their families. They do very well. Even have their kids with them.”

For those of us who just can’t accept father foragers in the supermarket, it may be time set aside your bias in the aisle.

“We’re finding that dads are not acting so differently from moms in their approach to grocery shopping,” maintained Cone’s Fleishman.

(Full disclosure: My husband does most of the supermarket shopping these days, but I have to write up the list.)

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