Salary.com recently calculated how much a stay-at-home mom would be paid if she received a salary for all the things she accomplishes daily. The result? In 2013 a stay-at-home mom in the US is worth approximately $114,000 per year. That’s the good news. The bad news is that she works some 94 hours a week. Meaning that a stay-at-home mom puts in, on average, 54 hours of overtime each week.
How did they arrive at this result? By asking thousands of parents how much time they put into various domestic jobs. Then they calculated what that amount of hours spent in a workplace doing the same task would be worth. Chef (14 hours/week), maid (14.4 hours/week), homework tutor (13.3 hours/week), taxi driver (8 hours/week), but also chief operating officer (3.3 hours/week), and psychologist (7.3 hours/week). The payment for doing these jobs in these environments for these numbers of hours adds up to $114,000 per year. Check out the infographic and complete study here.
Want to try to know the value of the time you dedicate to your family? The Salary.com site allows you to personalize the calculations for each mom or dad by specifying the number of hours each week spent on housework, cooking, homework help, and shopping.
Interestingly, when Salary.com compares moms and dads we see the stay-at-home mom's average is 94 hours of work each week while the stay-at-home dad's is just 55.7 hours for the same number of children.
Is it a question of dedication, efficiency, or both?