3 ms·

There's also something unsettling about "here's how [countries where the native birth rate is pretty much 0 or 1 babies] do parental leave!" feels a bit like...

There's also something unsettling about "here's how [countries where the native birth rate is pretty much 0 or 1 babies] do parental leave!" feels a bit like... the women already did half the corporation's work for them. There's the rub, can you (at a population level) have a birth rate at or above replacement if both parents are expected to find employment outside of the home? I don't think that's realistic.

pjc50 8y ago
Yes, but is a birth rate above replacement a good thing or a bad thing? If it's determined to be a socially good thing, then society should pay for it, rather than try to badger women out of the workplace to reduce their options and make them parents.
- lliamander 8y ago
  > Yes, but is a birth rate above replacement a good thing or a bad thing? Well, a birthrate below replacement can have a number of negative consequences, especially in a society like ours with the way we've setup social security. > If it's determined to be a socially good thing, then society should pay for it, rather than try to badger women out of the workplace to reduce their options and make them parents. For what it's worth, it was my father that was the stay-at-home parent for my childhood. Certainly I wouldn't want to force women to stay at home, but I've known a number who would at least like the option. How we pay for it is a valid question, but aside from the purely monetary aspect, there's question of emotional investment. Parents are generally only going to have as many kids as they feel they (collectively) have enough time for.
Dylan16807 8y ago
> There's the rub, can you (at a population level) have a birth rate at or above replacement if both parents are expected to find employment outside of the home? I don't think that's realistic. That's far more of a child care issue than a parental leave issue. If both parents take a year of leave each for three children that's not even close to a tenth of their working life. And we are expecting far too many hours to be worked per household. But there's no reason a reduction in working hours has to imply a stay at home parent. What if both parents worked 3 days a week, or 2 days a week?
- lliamander 8y ago
  > That's far more of a child care issue than a parental leave issue. If both parents take a year of leave each for three children that's not even close to a tenth of their working life. That's part of my point. If you need to use childcare services, then the cost of having children rises linearly with the number of children. If one parent stays home, then the costs grow logarithmically (I've heard anecdotally that after 4 kids, having more doesn't really require much additional effort because the older ones can be recruited to help with the younger ones). But aside from cost, there's also the question of emotional investment. I suspect that couples aren't generally going to want to have more than one or two kids if they aren't going to have enough time to personally invest in each kid. > And we are expecting far too many hours to be worked per household. But there's no reason a reduction in working hours has to imply a stay at home parent. What if both parents worked 3 days a week, or 2 days a week? That's a fair point, and I think it's worth looking at how that could be made a reality. However, shorter work weeks imply that each hour of work has the same marginal utility for the worker. I don't have any citations at the moment, but I've heard that people who work more hours tend to be paid disproportionately more. That is, it may make more financial sense for a family if one parent works 40-50 hours than if both work 20-25 hours.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > I've heard anecdotally that after 4 kids, having more doesn't really require much additional effort because the older ones can be recruited to help with the younger ones I've heard anecdotally, that after four (sometimes two or three, depending on who is describing it) kids having more doesn't require additional effort because there's a limit to available effort, and you're just into how it is divided at that point, effectively transitioning from K to r strategy.

pjc50 8y ago

Yes, but is a birth rate above replacement a good thing or a bad thing? If it's determined to be a socially good thing, then society should pay for it, rather than try to badger women out of the workplace to reduce their options and make them parents.

lliamander 8y ago
> Yes, but is a birth rate above replacement a good thing or a bad thing? Well, a birthrate below replacement can have a number of negative consequences, especially in a society like ours with the way we've setup social security. > If it's determined to be a socially good thing, then society should pay for it, rather than try to badger women out of the workplace to reduce their options and make them parents. For what it's worth, it was my father that was the stay-at-home parent for my childhood. Certainly I wouldn't want to force women to stay at home, but I've known a number who would at least like the option. How we pay for it is a valid question, but aside from the purely monetary aspect, there's question of emotional investment. Parents are generally only going to have as many kids as they feel they (collectively) have enough time for.

Dylan16807 8y ago

> There's the rub, can you (at a population level) have a birth rate at or above replacement if both parents are expected to find employment outside of the home? I don't think that's realistic. That's far more of a child care issue than a parental leave issue. If both parents take a year of leave each for three children that's not even close to a tenth of their working life. And we are expecting far too many hours to be worked per household. But there's no reason a reduction in working hours has to imply a stay at home parent. What if both parents worked 3 days a week, or 2 days a week?

lliamander 8y ago
> That's far more of a child care issue than a parental leave issue. If both parents take a year of leave each for three children that's not even close to a tenth of their working life. That's part of my point. If you need to use childcare services, then the cost of having children rises linearly with the number of children. If one parent stays home, then the costs grow logarithmically (I've heard anecdotally that after 4 kids, having more doesn't really require much additional effort because the older ones can be recruited to help with the younger ones). But aside from cost, there's also the question of emotional investment. I suspect that couples aren't generally going to want to have more than one or two kids if they aren't going to have enough time to personally invest in each kid. > And we are expecting far too many hours to be worked per household. But there's no reason a reduction in working hours has to imply a stay at home parent. What if both parents worked 3 days a week, or 2 days a week? That's a fair point, and I think it's worth looking at how that could be made a reality. However, shorter work weeks imply that each hour of work has the same marginal utility for the worker. I don't have any citations at the moment, but I've heard that people who work more hours tend to be paid disproportionately more. That is, it may make more financial sense for a family if one parent works 40-50 hours than if both work 20-25 hours.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > I've heard anecdotally that after 4 kids, having more doesn't really require much additional effort because the older ones can be recruited to help with the younger ones I've heard anecdotally, that after four (sometimes two or three, depending on who is describing it) kids having more doesn't require additional effort because there's a limit to available effort, and you're just into how it is divided at that point, effectively transitioning from K to r strategy.