5 ms·

It often feels like two income households are counter productive. Sure, we make more money, but it feels like 2x the dollars chasing 1.5x the pie out in the wor

It often feels like two income households are counter productive. Sure, we make more money, but it feels like 2x the dollars chasing 1.5x the pie out in the world. And then you have to pay for childcare. As for the household work, I was just telling someone today how much I miss being able to work all the time. I love my kids and they come first, but it's a sacrifice to for me not to work 12+ hour days.

yakult 9y ago
As with almost all optimization problems, applying twice the resources (in this case, work hours) won't bring you back twice the (net) bacon, due to diminishing returns. However, I think on net it is still more economically productive, at least in a large portion of cases. It's unlikely that housework and childcare would optimally take up a full 50% of our entire reservoir of workable-hours, especially in the age of household appliances and childcare centres.
- throwaway9980 9y ago
  Great point and I agree with most of your sentiment, but I'm not sure you got all of my point. What I'm saying, and a big component of what I'm thinking about is housing costs, is that we're chasing the same things with more dollars. If household incomes double, expect the price of houses to follow suit. Assuming supply doesn't change, it doesn't help to earn 2x the money when all the bidders in the marketplace also have 2x the money.
  - yakult 9y ago
    >we're chasing the same things with more dollars. you're missing the part where more demand creates more supply. Sure, sometimes the market is distorted due to zoning, like in SF, and also land is finite, but generally speaking the market responds to the added demand by creating more housing, possibly denser housing. Same with other goods. Those are not empty dollars that got added into the system by fiat - they represent additional productive work done, and the goods / services they create is added to the economy.
    - throwaway9980 9y ago
      Agreed. And that's why I said "assuming supply stays the same" when talking about the housing market. I don't think I was clear with what I meant by 2x and 1.5x. I'm assuming those dollars represent productive labor and that means that there's more supply. My point is that I think the supply side isn't keeping up. The economy itself isn't bringing home 2x the bacon, but rather 1.5x the bacon when you're feeding all this extra labor into it. And yes, this is due to market distortions and diminishing returns.
      - yakult 9y ago
        This is the crux: my point is that 1.5x the bacon is often still worth 2x the labour. Seriously, despite all the moaning about materialism and consumerism, the economy as a whole has suffered from a severe lack of bacon ever since the first monkey exchanged some bacon for a back rub, and this is definitely part of the solution.
        zero_intp 9y ago
        This is a very astute insight on a micro-economic scale. From a macro-economic scale, this is the difference between USA and, for example, French labor laws creating 40 vs 35/32 hour work weeks.
        yakult 9y ago
        That works sort-of when the majority of the population is relatively well-off, though still inefficient. Not so well now with the immigration crisis and change in demographics. The choice to sacrifice wages for more time with your kids is a luxury good, even if people choose to spend some of that time doing housework.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Spooky23 9y ago
  My wife and I found ourselves in this situation, and it there are slot of side benefits. - We don't spend our weekends shopping. - my wife can volunteer at my sons school and church, which opens up more social opportunities and keeps us tight with school. - We spend less in clothes, groceries and eating out. The value of this is much greater than anticipated. Overall, life is better. We're not driving new cars anymore. Other than that, the sacrifice is minimal. Her skill set is such that she can basically become employed again at any time.
  - yakult 9y ago
    >Other than that, the sacrifice is minimal. This is the difference. If you were making, say, a quarter what you're currently making, perhaps the sacrifice would be huge.
- canoebuilder 9y ago
  However, I think on net it is still more economically productive, at least in a large portion of cases. "Economically productive" in what way? If you want to adopt a short term perspective of a particular nuclear family making X dollars over Y years, maybe. But that's a rather shallow and irresponsible way of looking at things without accounting for what's better for the future society of our descendants, economically and otherwise. What in most cases will produce a better quality of individual, a child raised at home by a loving mother, or a child shuffled off to some "childcare" to be looked after by a minimum wage worker absorbed in a smartphone half the time? (Not that all non-motherly childcare is like that, but you get the point)
  - yakult 9y ago
    Economically productive as in 1. the economy is bigger and produces more goods. 2. much of those goods are distributed to the two-worker families. 3. a few bored minimum wage workers can look after a very large number of kids. The quality of childcare is on average a function of how much you pay. The boutique ones have professionally trained staff that get more than minimal wage. But what about the families that can't afford any but the most rundown centers, I hear you ask? Won't they be better off under the old system? You know, the one where the economy was 30% smaller due to halving the labour supply? Perhaps they would be living poor but honest lives, perfectly happy in their squalid conditions and lack of medical care.
mangodrunk 9y ago
I think you're right about two income households being counter productive. Why do we work so much? It's crazy to me that both parents will go to work, missing out on spending time and raising children (if they have them). Is the comfort really worth the time we could be spending with our children or just ourselves? I don't think so.

yakult 9y ago

As with almost all optimization problems, applying twice the resources (in this case, work hours) won't bring you back twice the (net) bacon, due to diminishing returns. However, I think on net it is still more economically productive, at least in a large portion of cases. It's unlikely that housework and childcare would optimally take up a full 50% of our entire reservoir of workable-hours, especially in the age of household appliances and childcare centres.

throwaway9980 9y ago
Great point and I agree with most of your sentiment, but I'm not sure you got all of my point. What I'm saying, and a big component of what I'm thinking about is housing costs, is that we're chasing the same things with more dollars. If household incomes double, expect the price of houses to follow suit. Assuming supply doesn't change, it doesn't help to earn 2x the money when all the bidders in the marketplace also have 2x the money.
- yakult 9y ago
  >we're chasing the same things with more dollars. you're missing the part where more demand creates more supply. Sure, sometimes the market is distorted due to zoning, like in SF, and also land is finite, but generally speaking the market responds to the added demand by creating more housing, possibly denser housing. Same with other goods. Those are not empty dollars that got added into the system by fiat - they represent additional productive work done, and the goods / services they create is added to the economy.
  - throwaway9980 9y ago
    Agreed. And that's why I said "assuming supply stays the same" when talking about the housing market. I don't think I was clear with what I meant by 2x and 1.5x. I'm assuming those dollars represent productive labor and that means that there's more supply. My point is that I think the supply side isn't keeping up. The economy itself isn't bringing home 2x the bacon, but rather 1.5x the bacon when you're feeding all this extra labor into it. And yes, this is due to market distortions and diminishing returns.
    - yakult 9y ago
      This is the crux: my point is that 1.5x the bacon is often still worth 2x the labour. Seriously, despite all the moaning about materialism and consumerism, the economy as a whole has suffered from a severe lack of bacon ever since the first monkey exchanged some bacon for a back rub, and this is definitely part of the solution.
      - zero_intp 9y ago
        This is a very astute insight on a micro-economic scale. From a macro-economic scale, this is the difference between USA and, for example, French labor laws creating 40 vs 35/32 hour work weeks.
        yakult 9y ago
        That works sort-of when the majority of the population is relatively well-off, though still inefficient. Not so well now with the immigration crisis and change in demographics. The choice to sacrifice wages for more time with your kids is a luxury good, even if people choose to spend some of that time doing housework.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Spooky23 9y ago
My wife and I found ourselves in this situation, and it there are slot of side benefits. - We don't spend our weekends shopping. - my wife can volunteer at my sons school and church, which opens up more social opportunities and keeps us tight with school. - We spend less in clothes, groceries and eating out. The value of this is much greater than anticipated. Overall, life is better. We're not driving new cars anymore. Other than that, the sacrifice is minimal. Her skill set is such that she can basically become employed again at any time.
- yakult 9y ago
  >Other than that, the sacrifice is minimal. This is the difference. If you were making, say, a quarter what you're currently making, perhaps the sacrifice would be huge.
canoebuilder 9y ago
However, I think on net it is still more economically productive, at least in a large portion of cases. "Economically productive" in what way? If you want to adopt a short term perspective of a particular nuclear family making X dollars over Y years, maybe. But that's a rather shallow and irresponsible way of looking at things without accounting for what's better for the future society of our descendants, economically and otherwise. What in most cases will produce a better quality of individual, a child raised at home by a loving mother, or a child shuffled off to some "childcare" to be looked after by a minimum wage worker absorbed in a smartphone half the time? (Not that all non-motherly childcare is like that, but you get the point)
- yakult 9y ago
  Economically productive as in 1. the economy is bigger and produces more goods. 2. much of those goods are distributed to the two-worker families. 3. a few bored minimum wage workers can look after a very large number of kids. The quality of childcare is on average a function of how much you pay. The boutique ones have professionally trained staff that get more than minimal wage. But what about the families that can't afford any but the most rundown centers, I hear you ask? Won't they be better off under the old system? You know, the one where the economy was 30% smaller due to halving the labour supply? Perhaps they would be living poor but honest lives, perfectly happy in their squalid conditions and lack of medical care.

mangodrunk 9y ago

I think you're right about two income households being counter productive. Why do we work so much? It's crazy to me that both parents will go to work, missing out on spending time and raising children (if they have them). Is the comfort really worth the time we could be spending with our children or just ourselves? I don't think so.