3 ms·

I would say the Dutch (as is often the case) probably have it about right: married women with kids frequently work about 20 hours a week and the man works a 40

I would say the Dutch (as is often the case) probably have it about right: married women with kids frequently work about 20 hours a week and the man works a 40 hours that actually ends up being closer to 50-60 hours away from the family (Figure commutes alone easily adds 5). Anecdotally, my wife couldn't stand to stay at home, but it's also physically impossible to work full time and cover the kids' schedules, groceries, etc. It doesn't have to be the woman either. We have friends where the woman works and the husband stays home. But they also adopted, so she never stayed home to recover, breastfeed, etc.

tmccrmck 10y ago
What kinds of jobs allow 20 hours/week? I can't remember ever seeing a single software development job (which wasn't contracting) where the employer advertised less than 40 hour weeks.
- kchoudhu 10y ago
  Europe has a much stronger culture of respecting part time work than the US. I was surprised to hear that my parttime friends in Europe had benefits equivalent to their fulltime colleagues.
- killjoywashere 10y ago
  There is an entire class of employment in healthcare called "per diem", and everyone who touches a patient can work per diem: doctor to therapy assistant. Probably stems from an admittedly patriarchal system wherein nurses often marry doctors, and suddenly find themselves with healthcare benefits for life, then deciding they don't want to work full time.
- GlennS 10y ago
  If you want to look for a decent part-time job, I would guess you could look for somewhere that employs a lot of late 20s and 30s women. Alternatively, a company which has employees who work in shifts is likely to already have the infrastructure for people to track their working time and be paid accordingly. The same goes for somewhere where people work on multiple projects for different clients on a payment for time spent basis (you have to know how much you worked for each client in order to bill them). The downside is that you would likely have to fill in a timesheet.
krastanov 10y ago
As far as you can tell, in your country, does it have to be always one or the other (spouse A spending 20ish hours working and the rest with the child while spouse B spending 50ish hours working)? Is it plausible for both of them to spend, say, X hours with the kid and 30-40ish hours working? I find the latter much more pleasant arrangement, for those that want to be able to have both careers and children (but this is obviously not a universal opinion).
- killjoywashere 10y ago
  yes, I think it's safe to say one works more hours away from the home, and one works more hours in the home. Any "perfect balance" is likely to be an unstable equilibrium, and one driver toward a more stable "prestressed' equilibrium is the need to maintain the kids' schedules. One person becomes more in tune with managing that.

tmccrmck 10y ago

What kinds of jobs allow 20 hours/week? I can't remember ever seeing a single software development job (which wasn't contracting) where the employer advertised less than 40 hour weeks.

kchoudhu 10y ago
Europe has a much stronger culture of respecting part time work than the US. I was surprised to hear that my parttime friends in Europe had benefits equivalent to their fulltime colleagues.
killjoywashere 10y ago
There is an entire class of employment in healthcare called "per diem", and everyone who touches a patient can work per diem: doctor to therapy assistant. Probably stems from an admittedly patriarchal system wherein nurses often marry doctors, and suddenly find themselves with healthcare benefits for life, then deciding they don't want to work full time.
GlennS 10y ago
If you want to look for a decent part-time job, I would guess you could look for somewhere that employs a lot of late 20s and 30s women. Alternatively, a company which has employees who work in shifts is likely to already have the infrastructure for people to track their working time and be paid accordingly. The same goes for somewhere where people work on multiple projects for different clients on a payment for time spent basis (you have to know how much you worked for each client in order to bill them). The downside is that you would likely have to fill in a timesheet.

krastanov 10y ago

As far as you can tell, in your country, does it have to be always one or the other (spouse A spending 20ish hours working and the rest with the child while spouse B spending 50ish hours working)? Is it plausible for both of them to spend, say, X hours with the kid and 30-40ish hours working? I find the latter much more pleasant arrangement, for those that want to be able to have both careers and children (but this is obviously not a universal opinion).

killjoywashere 10y ago
yes, I think it's safe to say one works more hours away from the home, and one works more hours in the home. Any "perfect balance" is likely to be an unstable equilibrium, and one driver toward a more stable "prestressed' equilibrium is the need to maintain the kids' schedules. One person becomes more in tune with managing that.