In the most literal sense yes, of course the increase in dual income homeowners is because of a greater number of women joining the workforce. But that masks the true reality, which is that those families require two incomes to a lifestyle that used to be achievable with one.
It’s a result of the lack of affordability, not a cause.
Scarce examples would be homes in the best school district you can afford near the best job markets. Or the best doctors, tutors, etc. And if the majority of people opt to be in dual income households, then the price of even average products/services will rise so that single income households will have to settle for less.
Humans are status seeking, so stuff is not just stuff. People value obtaining products/services that others cannot afford. The most basic example of this is the common advice to “buy the cheapest home in the most expensive neighborhood”.
Meaning, if you want your kids to hang out with kids of parents who earn at least as much or more than you, then you bid up housing prices as much as you can to minimize the number of families under a give income level that can afford the homes in the school district.
> in fact there is much more stuff for us to buy with our money now, and in fact (all else equal) woman working may drive DOWN the price of good and services.
This is also true, and it did drive down the price of many goods and services, including the price of labor itself. But it can also be true that prices for average or below average product/service decline, and above average products/services to increase.
Houses could only be priced such that a single income could buy them when most women did not work. Or nobody could buy them.
Once you have couples competing to buy that same housing stock, it becomes increasingly hard for a single income to compete and the price rises to match what the market can support.
> the price rises
ah, the swirling anonymity of "market forces"! These are all active decisions made by people, not forces of nature. The money from these increased prices doesn’t just disappear into the ether.
You're not wrong, of course, but it's worth looking at it from another angle. A house for a dual income family does not cost more to build than a house for a single income family. In a world where housing is considered more of a human right than an investment vehicle prices could have stayed low, more could be built, faster. Instead we live in a world where everyone must work more in order for their quality of life to stand still. I think it's permissible to be angry about that.
It doesn't take houses to be considered investment vehicles by anyone though for this to happen (even if some people do). Just more and cheaper money available to throw at the same things.
No such assumptions are necessary or intended. It doesn't make sense to assume working women produced nothing. I have no idea whether the construction industry took on more workers or not when women joined the workforce.
Regardless, most couples tend to buy one house, and two people's incomes can outbid one person's. That is all that it is necessary to assume.
For housing though, the economic unit is the household, not the individual, and land and location are not really affected by how much stuff we can produce. So housing costs will always occupy a large fraction of household wealth, no matter how wealthy we become.
Probably not. If you're familiar at all with the history of women entering the workforce, it was driven largely by women wanting to have careers and professional fulfillment and not financial necessity.
Rosie the Riveter, etc.
Looking at the labor force participation rate for women, since 1950 it's gone from 1/3 to 2/3.