I considered moving from Sweden to England for a job a while back. If we did so, the cost for day care and school would be significantly more than my wife's pot

I considered moving from Sweden to England for a job a while back. If we did so, the cost for day care and school would be significantly more than my wife's potential salary, so she would probably have stayed at home. That would have been completely absurd living in Sweden, I don't know any stay at home moms, barely even in my parent's generation. Of course culture, role models, mentors, etc are very important to some, but economic factors establish the baseline for what is actually reasonable and possible for most. As an example, to diversify the police force in Sweden, one method was to have more opportunity for remote studies at the police academy. It turns out women (for various reasons) have a harder time getting away from their families frequently, so when they could have remote classes that helped.