Mothers are leaving the workforce, erasing pandemic gains | Hacker News Reader

Mothers are leaving the workforce, erasing pandemic gains

washingtonpost.com

17 pointsdanielam10 comments

Or... Erasing pandemic detriments to their kids. Employers may be losing but kids are gaining additional attention, parenting, love, and home cooked meals. Probably a net gain for society.

As incomes decline relative to costs it makes sense for more people to stay home as the income is a wash compared to the cost savings of having a body at home full time to run the home.

It doesn't make sense if you need both incomes to survive. It just pushes the total fertility rate down faster when prospective parents realize they cannot afford childcare nor one parent to remain at home.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-income-a-family-...

https://illumine.app/blog/how-much-childcare-costs-by-state-...

https://childcaredeserts.org/

You can't "reduce the fertility rate" out of a kid you've already popped out. It's not households with people who can only provide value by working within their specialty that are electing to do this. It's households where the parent staying at home can provide value to the home beyond just babysitting the kids who are the first ones electing to do this.

If everyone does it the costs will decline.

Costs will not decline. I’m willing to bet on it.

Can only speak to the people I see and know around me, but many women I know don't want to work with small kids, even if daycare is available. And many women choose to delay or not to have kids so they can work. I know very few non wealthy working moms with preschool kids who like the situation.

Hell I don't want to work either ha.

As a family with a single working parent, it eventually can be very stressful.

If your friends are dual income, they may be going to the gym, paying for private school, and buying a second home- you probably won’t.

You may think that you can live with that or that it’s a wash because of the high cost of day care, after-school care, and camps, but you’re giving up years of continuous work experience, and during that time you won’t be putting as much away into your retirement funds.

As you get older, your parents rely on you, so you can’t fall back on them. Your family members and friends will die off and be affected by disease. You’ll become obsolete at work, and you won’t be able to take time off to retrain nor afford to pay for the additional education.

I’ve been stressed out for years because if I lose my job or get injured, and both have happened, there’s no one to take care of my family.

I love my family, and I love that our children had more support because one of us stayed home.

But, I wouldn’t suggest to anyone to have a single income family if you have a choice.

Well, companies want to chain employees to office desks for no real reason except to show that their office investment is important - that's not conducive to motherhood.

https://archive.is/dbkR1

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