Excel at work, start a family, be beautiful — How Latinas feel the pressure to do it all

Most Latinas feel pressure to play a key role in several aspects of their lives, including succeeding at work, caring for children and doing the cooking and cleaning at their houses, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center.

Concretely, two in three respondents said they felt pressure to excel at work at some point. 16% said that was the case for them "extremely often." 51% felt pressure to provide care for children in their family, with 16% checking the extremely often box as well, but fewer claiming to have this feeling very or somewhat often.

An even larger majority said they face pressure to do the cooking and cleaning at home, with 43% answering they feel this a great deal. One in four said a fair amount and an additional 16% faces some pressure.

The report links the pressure with "traditional cultural values carried over from Latin America," something that may have led them to "produce pressure from family or a community to place the needs of others ahead of their own, be passive or subordinate to others, or be virtuous or chaste."

Latinas say men feel these pressures too, but they are much less likely than women. No response category for men had more than 37% of positive answers, whereas no answer for women had less than 39%.

The category with the most positive answers for men (37%) was "being beautiful/handsome," whereas 62% of women reported the same pressure. The largest contrast involves the cooking and cleaning at home, with 68% of women saying this compared to 19% for men.

"Hispanic men generally agree that Hispanic women face more pressure than Hispanic men to do things associated with gender roles for women. For example, 57% of Hispanic men say Hispanic women face pressure to cook and clean at home, compared with 18% who say Hispanic men face this pressure."

Latinas born in the U.S. are far more likely than immigrants to feel these kinds of pressure. Out of five categories listed for this section, including getting married and having children, having few sexual partners and being pleasant, the former reported more pressure than the latter in all.

Looking at age differences, "Latinas who are young adults, college graduates, U.S. born, Democrats or don't have children are more likely to say that sexism against women at work is at least a somewhat big problem."

These feelings, however, don't mean respondents are unhappy. "88% of Latinas are either extremely or very satisfied (56%) or somewhat satisfied (32%) with their family life. And 86% say they are extremely or very happy (43%) or somewhat happy (43%) with how things are going in their lives these days," Pew detailed.