Money-Rich and Time-Poor: Life in Two-Income Households 有钱无闲的双收入家庭

丽贝卡·J.罗森

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 “loom 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.

首先要说的是，父母全职工作的家庭意味着会有两份收入。从经济角度来说，这确实不错。

皮尤研究中心关于双亲家庭目前发布的数据显示，双收入家庭年均收入达10.24万美元。而父亲工作母亲持家的家庭，年均收入大约只有一半，即5.5万美元。

当然，多出来的5万美元并非白来的——这些女性是出售了自己的时间，空余的时间因而所剩无几。皮尤调查显示，双收入家庭的父母都感觉时间紧迫。40%全职工作的妈妈“总觉得很匆忙”。一半全职工作的爸爸说他们没有足够时间和孩子相处。（皮尤调查还涵盖了同性伴侣，但由于数据不足不在此单独列举。）

近几十年来，這个群体的工作时间越来越长。《纽约时报》的克莱尔·凯恩·米勒提到，收入在百分位排名60到95的人，他们的工作时间是最长的，2013年达到了2015个小时，比1979年增加了5%。

皮尤数据显示，担子重重压在了妈妈肩上，她们仍要负担大部分的家务和对孩子的照顾（不过可以理解，和那些只有一人工作的家庭相比，双收入家庭确实会更平均地分担家务）。

这部分的数据有点混乱，因为说到做家务、带孩子，爸爸妈妈说出来的工作量不一致。爸爸更有可能认为承担的工作量是均衡的，其实很难说出谁对谁错。（我丈夫常说，如果两个人都认为自己承担了60%，那么家务活可能是平均分配的。因为一方干的很多活另一方往往看不见。如果你认为你做了一半，则实际上并非如此。）

乔希·列夫又对我说，尽管这一调查对比了全职工作的父母，但并不意味着父母用于工作的时间是一样的。乔希·列夫是《筋疲力尽：工作至上的文化如何使父难为、家难系、业难成？如何搞定这一切？》的作者。事实上，男性更有可能长时间地待在办公室，这是制约女性职场成就的另一原因。因此家务承担不均有可能是职场性别歧视的体现，而并非是爸爸的懒惰所致。

不管究竟如何分担（就我的经验而言，为此争论毫无价值），这些为人父母者都压力在身、烦扰不断，他们既要维持职场生涯，同时也要努力让家庭生活井井有条。

但这种并非无法面面俱到而是单纯头绪过多的感觉并不只是时间不足带来的。正如杰瑞·A.雅各布斯和凯瑟琳·格尔森在《时间分配》一书中写的那样：“很多人感到超负荷，不仅是长时间工作的结果，还与家庭和工作中日益增长的期望值有关。”工作常常令人精疲力竭，家庭生活也不容易。孩子，尤其是高学历、高收入人群的孩子，日程安排都非常紧张。他们不仅要完成很多任务，还承受了巨大的压力。

至少从理论上来说，很多倍感压力的高收入人群可以通过选择放弃部分收入来获得更多“平衡”。但是，这样一来，他们失去的就不仅仅是收入了。工作能带给人使命感，尤其是这些高薪人士所从事的工作。从整日在家到外出工作，这还意味着生活节奏的变化。战后，全职妈妈们曾求助于镇定剂来排遣自己的孤独寂寞、百无聊赖。

如果采用均等优先的原则，还有一种选择，就是父母二人都缩短工作时间，减少要处理的事务，但是这也可能意味着工作成就感降低，给孩子提供的机会也比“可能”得到的要少。对许多人来说，不会做这样的选择。

可惜的是，甚至那些成功的父母也只有这些选择。

然而，就在不久以前，人们的期待恰恰相反。20世纪初，即使在财富不断增长的情况下，人们年均工作时间仍在持续减少。很多人希望这种趋势一直保持，这引发了社会对过度悠闲问题的担忧。朱丽叶·肖尔在1992年的《劳累过度的美国人》一书中写道：

到20世纪50年代末，工作时间过长的问题已经得到解决，至少专家们认为如此。他们断定，一周4个工作日已“指日可待”。他们构想，经济增长会使工作时间逐渐减少。按照构想算到今天，人们一周工作22小时，一年工作6个月，或者在38岁正常退休。

这些设想令专家们忧心忡忡。1959年，《哈佛商业评论》刊物宣称：“无聊，这种过去贵族才有的苦恼，已经成了司空见惯的魔咒。”多出来的这些时间里，普通的美国民众会做些什么呢？丈夫们会有三到四天的周末时光，整天待在家里，家庭主妇们又将如何与丈夫相处呢？这即将来临的闲暇危机引起了密切而谨慎的关注。基金会提供资金，开展相关项目的研究。美国教会理事会成员讨论了空闲时间的问题。学术界为了应对大量闲暇时光带给人的困惑，纷纷成立了休闲研究所。哈佛大学社会学家戴维·里斯曼撰文探讨了人们如何在孤独的人群中“玩耍”，他还认为，大量的空闲时间会导致人们陷入“深渊”“思维迟缓”。像他这样的不乏其人。

但是，肖尔接着说道：“结果没有出现空闲的‘深渊’，过度悠闲带来的恐惧也就消亡了。”这一点，那些双收入夫妻再清楚不过。

（译者单位：浙江农林大学外国语学院）