Alternatively conditions can be created where one parent, most likely the mother, can stay home and wages will automatically increase because of the reduced labor force.
Additionally this can tend to have bad effects on the rest of our systems, for example the nursing shortage isn't resulting in better pay for most individuals despite them being in high demand. It's resulting in a rise in traveling nurses which also impacts the salary of other nurses. Companies are incredibly resistant to paying people more, especially when they have monopolistic control over jobs in certain areas which allows them to forcibly depress wages.
And companies always underestimate how much their burn and churn affects the next year at the cost of the quarter. I won't exactly sympathize with them as they degrade and a facility that doesn't drain blood from a rock rises.
Also, if half the working population stayed home, the economy would be half as productive. Wages won't automatically increase; business will just go to some country or region where comparable labor is more abundant, and the country's economy becomes less competitive.
> I thought it was WW2 and the lack of men to do the jobs they usually would.
I thought it was common to teach that women's employment rose with second-wave feminism in the 1960s.
My background knowledge: after WW2 ended, women were fired and replaced with men. The average age of marriage dropped, and the portion of women attending college descreased. Housewives were increasingly dissatisfied, which drew them to the second-wave feminist movement. This is why the book The Feminine Mystique sold well.
that would time well with being one generation removed from the one that lost 400k to war. the 60's would be when boomers would start entering the work force.
I'm sure some of the silent generation women also entered, but they wouldn't lead the bulk of the workforce shifting by the late 60's/70's.
That doesn't track the reality of the timeline of women in the workforce. Women temporarily worked during WW2, and after the war things returned to the previous status quo. Women weren't common in the workforce until the 1960s. It wasn't until 1967 that women's labor force participation broke 40%[1] but then it pretty quickly hit 50% by 1978.
"Women's liberation" is what brought women into the labor force. That doesn't mean it "ruined America", it just means the approach had flaws that need to be iterated on.
I don't think any progress in women can be attributed to feminism. They still don't have any ownership of their own bodies (abortion, sex work), their bodies are controlled by 80+ year old white males running the govt.
I don't think anyone is advocating for returning to the 1950s status quo. We should, however, do away with the delusion that couples can have both two careers and raise children. Sheryl Sandberg sent this message to women quite a while ago at this point, she just tilted it toward "give up on the family and focus on the career".
We can create incentives that allow it to make sense for a family to have a single income, and a mother to raise her own children again, without telling women they're required to do that. Right now there's not much of a choice at all. Couples are forced to have two incomes because they can't make economic ends meet otherwise. Giving women real choice is a whole lot better than what we currently have and better than the 1950s. Women who wants careers can have them, and women who wants to be full-time mothers should be able to do that without it meaning being destitute.
Like I said, though, I kind of wonder how a country could get there. If it became more common, the country would become less "productive" in the short term, because we don't count raising children towards the GDP, even though we should. So, in the short term, if voters and politicians keep chasing short term GDP growth, they'll never try to make the ideal outcome a reality. That would only start doing so when population goes down and immigration can't supplement population growth anymore, but by then it will be too late.
technology and education already solved this. We're not in the 50's anymore with a Ford-esque assembly worker chain dedicated to pushing one pencil each. One modern 2020's man can do the work of 10 minimum wage men back then. So why does he have less earning power than his grandfathers?
we're plenty productive, and the govt. shouldn't treat their people like a tech company does chasing "infinite growth". pay people a living wage, give them choices in lifestyle (part time, full time, contract, etc.), invest more in training and growth so each worker can do more, because to be frank we don't need a single cashier dedicated full time to checking items out anymore (as one example). If that training is valuable enough to poach, bring back proper bonuses and other retention incentives (but let's be real, most of that training these days is in college).
And come down the other way too. Stop letting housing rent for people who are actually living in a place get out of control. Same with food (and it'd be a nice bonus to subsidize more sustainable, healthy foods while we're at it).
I don't know for a fact, but I suspect it is possible to have two parents working from home and an external person coming home a couple of hours during the day and have both career + children, but I'm not entirely sure (my wife is fully dedicated to children, although we are at the tail end).
That being said, the choice shouldn't be determined by sex. Breastfeeding is a thing, but with Canada's paternity/maternity leaves, the problem is heavily mitigated (1 year, although with very low compensation)
I'm not saying that choice is plentiful, but it exists. I'm sure there are other people willing to have kids but also wants to progress in their career.
>I suspect it is possible to have two parents working from home and an external person coming home a couple of hours during the day and have both career + children, but I'm not entirely sure
sure, we call those nannies or simply babysitters, depending on the amount of involvement. Not impossible but it is a large expense to consider. Alternatively, be fortunate enough to have trustworthy neighbors who has a stay at home parent who can keep an eye on things for a few hours.
I wouldn't mind a return of the latchkey kid. those stranger danger initiatives probably did more damage than good with regards to letting a kid properly engage with the world.
Also, to maximize health benefits for the children, breastfeeding is preferable (according to WHO, for 2 years), which partially takes away that choice (it's really hard to make a choice against child health if it's purely based on my interest).
Can't say much about the breastfeeding. if that needs to be from the source and is an invariant for you you are definitely treading in deep waters. Still not impossible, but wet nurses are a very archaic concept (and crazy expensive these days if they still exist).