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Comment by x87678r | Hacker News Reader

One thing I've noticed in America compared to Europe is that the top salaries pay more which allows more stay at home wives. In Europe a manager/doctor/tech worker doesn't earn as much and its more likely that the wife is also in full time employment. Its anecdotal so I can't be sure, but its what I see in my neighborhood.

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The data doesn't really bear that out although some countries, e.g. in Scandinavia, are relatively higher. There's not a huge difference between Europe and the US in general: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.NE.ZS

You'd also really have to look at the breakdown by income level. Worldwide, female participation in the workforce is actually higher at higher income levels.

Wouldn't a second earner in a typical household be inherently correlated with income level in a "wet streets cause rain" kind of way?

This is also a question of tradition and choices. Speaking for eastern Germany, it was very common for women to work and this is also a choice of living, maybe encouraged by independency/emancipation

Women worked in all countries in the Soviet block, as the communist ideology was generally anti-family, so anything that weakened family ties was seen as positive. Also, of course by having two people per family working for the state (and there were hardly any private jobs, state was the main employer), the state can squeeze more value out of them.

That does not make current female employment unrelated to independency/emancipation, just like wester female employment is related to that too.

That just means that contemporary woman is not seen as shirking her mom responsibilities when working. While the children are definitely seen as mothers primary responsibility, working is part of that. It also means that there is less expectation on women to be artificially nice or helpless and dependent compared to American stereotypes.

Unlike in America, woman working is not interpreted as woman being anti-family. Unlike in Germany, mom working is not interpreted as mom failing her kids.

Also, it is not like the first women stepped into Russian factory only after revolution. The women did worked prior that, obviously. Whether on rural farms in villages or in factories or as cleaners or selling stuff at marker etc. The aristocracy expected women to not work, but generally Russians have been poor and had to do stuff to survive.

Anecdotally from the generation of people that lived in Eastern Germany, especially in rural areas, a sense of community, solidarity and purpose is what went missing after the Berlin wall came down.

I have never thought of having more women in the workforce as "anti-family", and will definitely research on that, but personally I am happy to have a more diverse workforce and not stigmatize men if they want to stay at home.

> I am happy to have a more diverse workforce and not stigmatize men if they want to stay at home.

I dont think Eastern Europe is the place more accepting of men staying with children at home.

> I have never thought of having more women in the workforce as "anti-family"

In lieu of their mothers, children need to be looked after by professional caretakers. This weakens their bond with the mother. And even in the evenings, when mother is back from the job, she's beat and can't give the same level of attention to their children.

As a teacher, I had the great benefit of staying home with my toddler over the summer, and I can decidedly tell you that my wife was far more chipper and ready to provide positive attention to our son in the evenings than I was.

There are two parents! Is it still 1960?

Both parents are working, so the children are cared for by the state in Ganztagesschulen (Germany, literally Whole-Day-Schools). It's a mix of "we must raise the children because some parents are unwilling/unable to do it themselves" and necessity for average parents who cannot afford for one of them not to work full time.

Similar in here in Sweden, but my point is to highlight the focus on the mother as the primary and default child carer.

It's much less common in Western Germany, and the difference largely persists to this day. The Economist recently had a good article on that, non-paywall link: https://outline.com/DZyckV

I don't think that holds. Here's a data set of female/male work force ratio for a bunch of nations. The US at 85% isn't notably different from the rest of the industrialized world. It's a little bit lower than the UK but a little bit higher than Germany, etc...

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FM.NE.ZS

That doesn't falsify your specific claim, which is about a very small fraction of the population (six figure salaries put families into the top 3% or so), but it's reasonable evidence.

Broadly: you're taking a cultural point about upper middle class "America" and extending it to the whole society. Most people don't (can't) live like that.

Staying at home is also religion related. Evangelical and conservative groups (of both genders) want to have women at home regardless of how rich they are.

It might be, but again the data doesn't really bear it out as a unique thing to the US. The US looks like other industrial nations in aggregate.

And childcare costs/good free childcare availability/allow you to leave your job at 17:00 sharp are probably other relevant factors, as well.

German moms less likely to return to work then Americans. Moms in Switzerland also have difficulties to return to work, although I cant find statistics now. Where I live, programmers earn almost double average salary, so I am pretty sure that it would be possible for their wifes to stay at home if they wished financially.

Childcare price is issue too and sometimes pushes opposite way. Poor families in America sometimes have to stay at home, because childcare is expensive.

Staying at home is not just function of how much you earn, probably not even primary. There are also practical aspects of "is it expected of me", "is it possible to manage school, activities and work" and "do I want to stay at home".

Additionally in some European countries (e.g. Finland, probably other Nordic countries as well) there isn't family taxation so 2 people earning 3000 a month is better than single person earning 6000.

Good point, I thought USA was the only country in the world that had household income instead of individual.

UK as well, it's actually quite frustrating since child benefit is based on the highest paid partner, not the combined income of both partners.

The Arab world and india lead in numbers of stay at home wives / mothers. but not for long, as a lot more out of the house jobs for women (and husbands and fathers also) are now stay at home even in the rest of the world...

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