Opting out ,” “off-ramping” and “following the mommy track” are all popular terms to describe professional women opting out leave their jobs to be stay-at-home moms. But do they describe the truth of the matter? Stone, an associate professor of sociology at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, set out to answer this question after discovering that there was no research on the matter; perceptions of these women were shaped almost exclusively by the media. Stone conducted in-depth interviews with 54 women: white women who had been highly successful professionals and were married to men who could support them while they stayed at home—i.e., women who had a “choice.” What Stone found was fascinating and surprising: women quit because of work, not family, and only as a last resort

Kathleen Gerson, a sociologist at New York University who studies families and the labor market, said the census figures come as a reality check. Opting out, she said, “is not and never has been and will not be a revolution,” she said. “Far more women are in the workplace than not, and there is no evidence to show that that will turn around.”

Read the article in Washington Post: Census Dispels Opting out