Mom's job is worth over a hundred grand: survey

A family shops for produce in Boston in a file photo. If mothers were paid for cooking, cleaning and caring for their families they could easily earn a six-figure salary, according to new calculations.

TORONTO (Reuters Life!) - If mothers were paid for cooking, cleaning and caring for their families they could easily earn a six-figure salary, according to new calculations.

After asking 18,000 mothers to list their most common tasks such a cooking, cleaning and childcare, a salary compensation company determined the value of their job functions to calculate what they could earn if they were paid.

In Canada the 10 most popular jobs performed by a stay-at-home mother would equate to a C$125,000 ($124,280) salary, including overtime, and almost $75,000 for a working mother, in addition to her real salary.

"The most common misconception is that being a stay at home mom is easier than working. The moms are sitting home, eating bonbons and watching Oprah," said Lena Boltos, of Salary.com which conducted the survey and made the calculations.

"But moms are responsible for a lot. Kids nowadays lead more hectic lives than they ever did. Mom's really running the home business," she added in an interview.

The salary calculations were based on the top ten jobs mothers said they did at home and the hours they spent doing them each day. The numbers were then compared to the market value each job was worth.

The high salary calculations were due to lots of overtime hours. Stay-at-home moms reported over 90 hours in overtime while working moms said they put in 54.6 hours of overtime, on top of their paying jobs.

Without adding overtime the average base pay for both groups would be C$41,600.

In addition to housekeeping and daycare, other jobs on the list included laundry machine operator, computer operator, psychologist, facilities manager, van driver, CEO, and janitor.

(Reporting by Irene Kuan; Editing by Patricia Reaney)