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It's not as straightforward. The stay-at-home-parent leaves the workforce which is good for the first pre-school years cost-wise, but getting back into the work

It's not as straightforward. The stay-at-home-parent leaves the workforce which is good for the first pre-school years cost-wise, but getting back into the workforce after those "lost" years (bad term, as they're not lost -- there's true value in them to society, it's just not paid work) is inheritently difficult. Overall lifetime income is impacted by this decision. This is the substantive metric for the gender wage gap as that gap is measured in the overall lifetime income, not the per-wage of equivalent positions as it's inaccurately reported. Women generally leave the workforce to care for children, lose their prestige/position and when re-entering have to start at the beginning or lower position/wage and try to catch-up. Better childcare options would improve this immeasurably, or less stigma around both parents sharing the childcare time equitably would as well. In some countries this is the case, and it is having a measurable impact on childbirth rates.

CalRobert 8y ago
This exactly. My wife and I have one child. For the first six months, the child was home with her (the typical maternity period in this country) For the second six months, she worked and the child was in daycare. It was a really good daycare, and the minder was damn near angelic. But it was also kind of horrible. Many nights I had put the child to bed before she was home from work. We wondered what the hell the point of having a kid you get to see on the weekends is. After paying for childcare, she had relatively little to show for her job. We were also a lot more likely to do expensive things like eat out, etc. due to exhaustion. Part time work was not an option for either of us. We eventually decided to have one parent stay home. It was her, because she made less money (perhaps because of a self-reinforcing bias that mothers are more likely to stay home, and thus are paid less?). Realistically speaking, it wasn't "I want to take a few years off work" but rather "I am throwing my _entire career_ in to the dumpster for this". Because in most fields that have decent jobs, you just _can't_ leave for 3-5 years and hop back in where you left off. It doesn't happen. Paradoxically, because she's home with the kid this makes us more likely to consider having a second, because childcare is a sunk cost. If there were inexpensive childcare and better part-time options we'd be more likely to stick with one. I suspect this explains why Nordic countries have low birth rates and high labour participation rates from mothers. That's not a bad thing though - ultimately the world should be working to get the fertility rate below 2 children per women, especially in the developed world. We fell in to the two-income trap in the 1970's and it's been getting worse ever since. Combined with the death of decent-paying blue collar jobs (though programming is quick becoming blue collar) it will result in similar decisions.
deleted 8y ago
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CalRobert 8y ago

This exactly. My wife and I have one child. For the first six months, the child was home with her (the typical maternity period in this country) For the second six months, she worked and the child was in daycare. It was a really good daycare, and the minder was damn near angelic. But it was also kind of horrible. Many nights I had put the child to bed before she was home from work. We wondered what the hell the point of having a kid you get to see on the weekends is. After paying for childcare, she had relatively little to show for her job. We were also a lot more likely to do expensive things like eat out, etc. due to exhaustion. Part time work was not an option for either of us. We eventually decided to have one parent stay home. It was her, because she made less money (perhaps because of a self-reinforcing bias that mothers are more likely to stay home, and thus are paid less?). Realistically speaking, it wasn't "I want to take a few years off work" but rather "I am throwing my _entire career_ in to the dumpster for this". Because in most fields that have decent jobs, you just _can't_ leave for 3-5 years and hop back in where you left off. It doesn't happen. Paradoxically, because she's home with the kid this makes us more likely to consider having a second, because childcare is a sunk cost. If there were inexpensive childcare and better part-time options we'd be more likely to stick with one. I suspect this explains why Nordic countries have low birth rates and high labour participation rates from mothers. That's not a bad thing though - ultimately the world should be working to get the fertility rate below 2 children per women, especially in the developed world. We fell in to the two-income trap in the 1970's and it's been getting worse ever since. Combined with the death of decent-paying blue collar jobs (though programming is quick becoming blue collar) it will result in similar decisions.

deleted 8y ago

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