Yes. The opportunity cost of housewifing is breadwinning. The opportunity cost of breadwinning is housewifing. Guess which one pays the rent/mortgage (keywords not found in the text.)
- many more meals must be ordered in or eaten out instead of prepared from scratch
- transportation cost increases, more vehicles needed which means more gas more insurance more repairs or more transit fare and now both people sacrifice possibly hours of their day to commuting
- childcare services must be paid for and transportation arranged for them
- the choice of housing now has the additional constraint of being within commute distance for the second job (along with other resources that must be obtained outside the home now e.g. childcare) often meaning less choice and higher cost
- with both partners sharing household duties evenly, neither can take on additional work as needed whether that's taking work home, staying late or working a second job. Dividing the labor so one person manages the household and the other devotes their energies to earning money allows both to be more effective at what they do. Division of labor is the cornerstone of an advanced industrial society that makes everything possible.
But the real issue is what the article points out, that this often leaves the stay at home parent “trapped” and dependent on the working spouse. What do you do when you’ve been out of the workforce 20+ years, kids out of the house (no child support), and you need to support yourself now?
If the earner leaves: alimony
It's not like we haven't solved these problems before. Yes, we could improve legislation around this but the basic idea is that if you have a contract with a partner where one of you earns the income and the other does the work at home then part of that contract is to recompense the person who is not working if the one who is fails to live up to their side of the bargain for whatever reason.
I was thinking about the logistics of this the other day since one of our cars is down, I'm WFH with a SAHM and I hate the expense of having to maintain two cars. Maybe this is the time to downgrade to one (which will be followed by mandatory RTO, knowing my luck).
Being a housewife is Work. It's a full-time unpaid job that frequently involves bringing things to the home from outside of it. She's not my dog; if I took our only car to work, my wife doesn't just sit around awaiting my return or stop needing to go places. The kids still need to be brought to/from school (in California, this is at irregular times on irregular days for maximum exclusion). Sometimes they need to go to the doctor. Sometimes she needs to go to the doctor. Groceries need procurement.
She could take the bus, maybe. Then it's a discussion of which partner's role is critical enough to necessitate exclusive use of the car. Both sides are valid. Being a trailblazer doesn't mean shit if nobody's maintaining your path.
In past instances, I've left the car to her and just taken Uber to ad-hoc onsite work, but this is very unreliable (and expensive for short hops).
If you live in an American suburb, you need multiple vehicles regardless of employment status.
There is this "modern" expectation of a lifestyle, but most of those things aren't _necessary_. There are lots of families which need two incomes to maintain the necessary stuff, but it's not the majority and few of them are reading HN.
I really can't get behind the money-saving arguments about food etc. (mostly in other comments even though my post is here.)
I mean, I buy meals during the day because I'm rich and lazy. Nothing's stopping me from storing leftover dinner in the fridge and taking it into work the next day.
But if I wanted unrealistic comparisons between food costs and employment, why not child care too: I save so much money and time by having my kid fed at daycare instead of having to feed him myself.
I agree.
It would be absolutely crazy to split the workforce down the middle (housewife vs. everything else). It would be like if half the workforce was bakers or dentists.
* Childcare costs decrease with age, and decrease substantially when your child reaches school age. Full-time childcare costs are typically only for the first 3-4 years of a child's life.
* Even if you break even in terms of take-home pay, a stay-at-home parent that was previously working might be missing out on things like 401K/retirement contributions.
* The opportunity costs to your career of taking 3-4 years off is enormous, and it's frequently difficult at best to return to work with similar pay/seniority as when you left after taking several years off (and might be effectively impossible if you've taken 10+ years off).
For working professionals, it's incredibly short-sighted to look at short term childcare costs vs take-home pay solely in terms of dollars, and it's silly to to say there is 'no incentive except avoiding your kids.' The incentive in terms of dollars and job prospects over the course of your career can be huge.
Relationships are about trust and vulnerability. If you're making fucking contingency plans, you're cheating at being in a relationship and don't belong in one.
My own advice would be that if you catch your spouse making contingency plans, see to it that their plan is executed as quickly and efficiently as possible. People that know they have a way out of trouble tend to do very nasty things before justifying their execution (same reason not to trust anyone of a citizenship you don't share). Get out of that relationship immediately while terms are good. The contingency will be executed by them under the worst of terms otherwise (expect to be provoked into violence or accused of spousal rape or worse, seemingly out of nowhere).