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> "Women entered the job market due to birth control and legal changes..." the argument that dual-income households becoming necessities for home ownership and

> "Women entered the job market due to birth control and legal changes..." the argument that dual-income households becoming necessities for home ownership and raising a family is plausible, if unsupported. but the quoted causal relationship above is not even plausible, let alone supported. women entered the job market because they wanted to realize their ambitions and support their families, just like men. other societal changes may have aided or hindered that ambition to various effect, but they don't form the driving force as you state.

nickserv 7y ago
It's not the full story but is definitaly part of it. Without birth control and legal changes, women would not have been able to follow their ambitions; it's difficult to work when you're pregnant for the 8th time and anyway are not legally allowed to without your husband's permission.
- d1zzy 7y ago
  Right, but that's like saying "without women we wouldn't have women entering the workforce". Technically true, but not an argument against it.
toomuchtodo 7y ago
> the argument that dual-income households becoming necessities for home ownership and raising a family is plausible, if unsupported. "Elizabeth Warren’s book, The Two-Income Trap, explained Before she was a politician, Warren wrote a controversial book about family life and economics. The “two-income trap,” as described by Warren, really consists of three partially separate phenomena that have arisen as families have come to rely on two working adults to make ends meet: * The addition of a second earner means, in practice, a big increase in household fixed expenses for things like child care and commuting. * Much of the money that American second earners bring in has been gobbled up, in practice, by zero-sum competition for educational opportunities expressed as either skyrocketed prices for houses in good school districts or escalating tuition at public universities. * Last, while the addition of the second earner has not brought in much gain, it has created an increase in downside risk by eliminating an implicit insurance policy that families used to rely on." https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18183091/two-income-trap-elizabeth-warren-book https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18183091/t... > women entered the job market because they wanted to realize their ambitions and support their families, just like men. other societal changes may have aided or hindered that ambition to various effect, but they don't form the driving force as you state. Regardless of why, increased labor participation from woman joining the workforce in greater numbers than previously [1] was going to drive inflation for inelastic goods and services like housing, childcare, and education. It now has become a prisoner's dilemma: participate in the treadmill or find a way off. [1] https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2017/women-in-the-workforce-before-during-and-after-the-great-recession/pdf/women-in-the-workforce-before-during-and-after-the-great-recession.pdf https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2017/women-in-the-workforce-be... (PDF, page 2)
- clairity 7y ago
  yah, that's good supporting evidence for the 2-income trap. incidentally, my first foray into student loans made me realize a similar trap formed by government guaranteed student loans combined with the inability to discharge them via bankruptcy. those factors practically guarantee rising educational costs due to risk-free money flowing to both educational and financial institutions.
- oposa 7y ago
  As a Northern European it does seem a bit of a bad deal that women are expected to work but there isn't much of a guarantee for parental leave, affordable child care or even vacation. But I guess there isn't that much precedent for such things.
  - bobthechef 7y ago
    That expectation is rather cruel. For decades, women who make motherhood their "careers" have been looked down on as somehow inferior to women who pursue careers. Even the terminology used to describe such women is disparaging and loaded with shame and disappointment, as if the woman in question had chosen or had been forced to choose an inferior option. That she is in some sense a failure for prioritizing her children over her career.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      It’s perverse that in our (supposedly) liberated world the standard that women are held to is men.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Isn't that what equality was supposed to be? EDIT: Anecdotally, it seems that equality was strived for and it's not turning out as great as a lot of folks hoped for. Educated women don't date down like men did/do which makes finding a partner in itself much more difficult [1], women want the same career opportunities as men while also taking leave that puts them at a disadvantage, which is unavoidable; you will be at a disadvantage to someone who is willing to not take their leave to focus on their career, regardless of gender, and men usually take less or no paternity leave even when offered [2]. A lot of people raced to find success and actualization in the workplace, and it is turning out poorly [3]. We have housing, childcare, and education cost inflation due to more dollars chasing the same amount of those necessities. [4] I want to be absolutely clear that I support woman having equal rights, equal pay, and should never, ever be discriminated against. I shouldn't have to say that, but you know, the Internet. The above paragraph are my observations as an armchair anthropologist. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-gap-hook-up-culture-female-graduates https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-... (The dating gap: why the odds are stacked against female graduates finding a like-minded man) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19878117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19878117 (HN Thread: After men in Spain got paternity leave, they wanted fewer kids) [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20468767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20468767 (HN Thread: The Loneliness Epidemic) [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20474292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20474292 (My HN comment above citing the Two Income Trap)
belorn 7y ago
> Women entered the job market due to birth control and legal changes >> women entered the job market because they wanted to realize their ambitions and support their families From a historical perspective, women entered the job market because a world war (ww1) consumed the pool of available men through drafting them to die on the front line and having a war engine that increasingly needed more and more resources. We are talking about a change from ~20% to almost 50% over the time span of 4 years. Neither birth control nor cultural ambitions has that fast effect on society. War does.
- clairity 7y ago
  sure, women worked during the world wars out of necessity, but they didn't enter and stay in the workforce because of it. while women working during war helped to unveil the value and abilities of women in the workforce, war didn't drive the shift to 2-income households by itself. if women had no other ambitions, they would have just gone back to "home economics" after the wars and the economy would have stayed the same.
  - belorn 7y ago
    It is indeed true that there are many reason why society continued with both women and men in the work force after the war. One of those were political, as it is difficult to argue first that women and men should shoulder equal responsibility during the war and be included in the military draft and equal right to vote, only to do a 180 degree turn a few months later because the war ended. The writing was on the wall and Women's right to vote got voted in 2 years later. The women military draft however was dropped as the emergency of the war died down. The president said a month before the war ended: We have made partners of the women in this war; shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right? It is hard to find a stronger sign of a cultural change. 20 years later the second world war started so even if there had been a movement to return to "the old days", it would not have had time. The second world war saw again an major increase in women participation in the work force, including major initiatives for equal pay. Men were being sent to the front line and the factories needed people. The world wars was the period where the cultural change occurred. Trying to revert the culture back to pre-1914 mindset would had been about as impossible then as it is now. Instead people continued on the cultural path that had been established.

nickserv 7y ago

It's not the full story but is definitaly part of it. Without birth control and legal changes, women would not have been able to follow their ambitions; it's difficult to work when you're pregnant for the 8th time and anyway are not legally allowed to without your husband's permission.

d1zzy 7y ago
Right, but that's like saying "without women we wouldn't have women entering the workforce". Technically true, but not an argument against it.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

> the argument that dual-income households becoming necessities for home ownership and raising a family is plausible, if unsupported. "Elizabeth Warren’s book, The Two-Income Trap, explained Before she was a politician, Warren wrote a controversial book about family life and economics. The “two-income trap,” as described by Warren, really consists of three partially separate phenomena that have arisen as families have come to rely on two working adults to make ends meet: * The addition of a second earner means, in practice, a big increase in household fixed expenses for things like child care and commuting. * Much of the money that American second earners bring in has been gobbled up, in practice, by zero-sum competition for educational opportunities expressed as either skyrocketed prices for houses in good school districts or escalating tuition at public universities. * Last, while the addition of the second earner has not brought in much gain, it has created an increase in downside risk by eliminating an implicit insurance policy that families used to rely on." https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18183091/two-income-trap-elizabeth-warren-book https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18183091/t... > women entered the job market because they wanted to realize their ambitions and support their families, just like men. other societal changes may have aided or hindered that ambition to various effect, but they don't form the driving force as you state. Regardless of why, increased labor participation from woman joining the workforce in greater numbers than previously [1] was going to drive inflation for inelastic goods and services like housing, childcare, and education. It now has become a prisoner's dilemma: participate in the treadmill or find a way off. [1] https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2017/women-in-the-workforce-before-during-and-after-the-great-recession/pdf/women-in-the-workforce-before-during-and-after-the-great-recession.pdf https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2017/women-in-the-workforce-be... (PDF, page 2)

clairity 7y ago
yah, that's good supporting evidence for the 2-income trap. incidentally, my first foray into student loans made me realize a similar trap formed by government guaranteed student loans combined with the inability to discharge them via bankruptcy. those factors practically guarantee rising educational costs due to risk-free money flowing to both educational and financial institutions.
oposa 7y ago
As a Northern European it does seem a bit of a bad deal that women are expected to work but there isn't much of a guarantee for parental leave, affordable child care or even vacation. But I guess there isn't that much precedent for such things.
- bobthechef 7y ago
  That expectation is rather cruel. For decades, women who make motherhood their "careers" have been looked down on as somehow inferior to women who pursue careers. Even the terminology used to describe such women is disparaging and loaded with shame and disappointment, as if the woman in question had chosen or had been forced to choose an inferior option. That she is in some sense a failure for prioritizing her children over her career.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    It’s perverse that in our (supposedly) liberated world the standard that women are held to is men.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Isn't that what equality was supposed to be? EDIT: Anecdotally, it seems that equality was strived for and it's not turning out as great as a lot of folks hoped for. Educated women don't date down like men did/do which makes finding a partner in itself much more difficult [1], women want the same career opportunities as men while also taking leave that puts them at a disadvantage, which is unavoidable; you will be at a disadvantage to someone who is willing to not take their leave to focus on their career, regardless of gender, and men usually take less or no paternity leave even when offered [2]. A lot of people raced to find success and actualization in the workplace, and it is turning out poorly [3]. We have housing, childcare, and education cost inflation due to more dollars chasing the same amount of those necessities. [4] I want to be absolutely clear that I support woman having equal rights, equal pay, and should never, ever be discriminated against. I shouldn't have to say that, but you know, the Internet. The above paragraph are my observations as an armchair anthropologist. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-gap-hook-up-culture-female-graduates https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-... (The dating gap: why the odds are stacked against female graduates finding a like-minded man) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19878117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19878117 (HN Thread: After men in Spain got paternity leave, they wanted fewer kids) [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20468767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20468767 (HN Thread: The Loneliness Epidemic) [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20474292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20474292 (My HN comment above citing the Two Income Trap)

belorn 7y ago

> Women entered the job market due to birth control and legal changes >> women entered the job market because they wanted to realize their ambitions and support their families From a historical perspective, women entered the job market because a world war (ww1) consumed the pool of available men through drafting them to die on the front line and having a war engine that increasingly needed more and more resources. We are talking about a change from ~20% to almost 50% over the time span of 4 years. Neither birth control nor cultural ambitions has that fast effect on society. War does.

clairity 7y ago
sure, women worked during the world wars out of necessity, but they didn't enter and stay in the workforce because of it. while women working during war helped to unveil the value and abilities of women in the workforce, war didn't drive the shift to 2-income households by itself. if women had no other ambitions, they would have just gone back to "home economics" after the wars and the economy would have stayed the same.
- belorn 7y ago
  It is indeed true that there are many reason why society continued with both women and men in the work force after the war. One of those were political, as it is difficult to argue first that women and men should shoulder equal responsibility during the war and be included in the military draft and equal right to vote, only to do a 180 degree turn a few months later because the war ended. The writing was on the wall and Women's right to vote got voted in 2 years later. The women military draft however was dropped as the emergency of the war died down. The president said a month before the war ended: We have made partners of the women in this war; shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right? It is hard to find a stronger sign of a cultural change. 20 years later the second world war started so even if there had been a movement to return to "the old days", it would not have had time. The second world war saw again an major increase in women participation in the work force, including major initiatives for equal pay. Men were being sent to the front line and the factories needed people. The world wars was the period where the cultural change occurred. Trying to revert the culture back to pre-1914 mindset would had been about as impossible then as it is now. Instead people continued on the cultural path that had been established.