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Your first point (childcare) is probably one of the more understated points. When families have 2 children under 5, the cost of childcare for both children encr

Your first point (childcare) is probably one of the more understated points. When families have 2 children under 5, the cost of childcare for both children encroaches the income of one parent alone. Many find it more convenient just to stay home with their kids for 3-4 years than work just so their kids have childcare. I don't know that there is much the government can do. Childcare facilities actually run on thin margins and turnover is high. State regulations are often aggressive towards child to caretaker ratios. I would also suggest a 4th point: 4. People that were on the verge of retirement (within 5-10 years) that were either laid off and never re-entered the workforce or opted for early retirement. Age discrimination probably sets in with folks 50 and over that want to either change careers or re-engage with their career path after time off due to the pandemic. Plus with the stock market seeing record gains, their retirement plans are probably looking very enticing.

hirako2000 5y ago
The dogmatism of putting all women to work for the last 50 years. Here we are, women have gotten their "equal" pay (rightly so) and are nearly all employees or freelancers. After a long battle, so of course childcare like everything else needs paid. Most social workers are women. What's the way out, migrants from poorer countries? Just pushing the problem for later. We are waking up to the fact this model cannot work for the overall population. It has been promoted by those who would greatly benefit from having everyone at work, and echoed by those who would somewhat benefit, and echoed more times all the way down to those who had everything to loose. The problem of childcare cost is unsolvable with women at work, it's as simple as that. At best the average working woman will pay the same as she earns to afford full time child care. But if tax is taken into account, then it won't cover it. Or we squeeze more staff per child. I think it will take some more time for most of us to come around to the reality of a model doomed to fail.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  Many countries have state-run or state-subsidised childcare. Universal or managed childcare - like health care - is one of those things that is a massive drag on the economy if it isn't provided. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/childcare-around-the-world-how-other-countries-do-it-better-1.3626710 https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/childcare-a...
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    Most of the countries with state run daycare have even lower fertility than US has. I don’t think there is a single country with all of: government childcare, high female labor market participation, and above replacement fertility. If anything, the correlation is opposite: the more subsidized the childcare is, the fewer children are born.
    - riffraff 5y ago
      While I agree with your point in general, the Faroe islands might qualify. I do not know why, but they have a 2.4 fertility rate, could be related to an influx of women from poor countries (which in turn might not participate in the workforce, confirming what you state).
      - xyzzyz 5y ago
        If you asked me, I’d say that the most probable cause is that people in Faroe Islands have less opportunity to get Education and build a Career, which makes childbearing more attractive in relative terms, as opportunity cost is lower. For the same reason, policies that in the west make it easier to have Education and Career, like subsidized daycare, end up depressing the fertility even further, contrary to expectations.
- IkmoIkmo 5y ago
  > The dogmatism of putting all women to work for the last 50 years. > The problem of childcare cost is unsolvable with women at work, it's as simple as that. What kind of nonsense is this? One in six women never go on to have children, it's great news that these women's access to the labour market has improved. Second, childcare ratios aren't 1 to 1. In fact they're about 1 to 4 for babies <1 year, 1 to 10 for 5 year olds, and 1 to 12 at school age. Suppose all women had children (they don't), society still greatly benefits from the efficiency of a childcare ratio as high as 1:12 as opposed to women caring for their child 1:1. Third, children aren't permanently children, and certainly not permanently babies. The first few years requires a lot of parental or private childcare, but afterwards kids mostly go to school for most of the day. A woman will have at least 45 years between adulthood and retirement and most of that kids won't need constant parental care like the first few years. Making sure women stay active in the labour force (even part-time) will greatly help their chances in the labour market throughout their career. Fourth, I see no reason why we're speaking about women rather than about parents. Providing income and childcare are shared responsibilities. It's fine to arrange it in your own family as you wish, but society shouldn't speak about these topics as if they should only apply to women.
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    I do expect some sensitivity when daring to question women being in the work force rather than prioritising the care of their own children. Let me be clear first, I entirely agree with you that society shouldn't tell us what is right with this regard. But society has spoken, the dogma of having women be the same as men and get to work. With the pretence of more freedom and independence of course. I don't speak for women, nor men. Each person is free to decide whether they should enter the workforce or not. I'm not advocating that women shouldn't be allowed to work. I disagree with the ratio argument you've proposed, I'm sorry 1 carer for 12 toddlers is undeseriable. Ask any stay-at-home moms how it goes when they get their 3rd kid. And a carer will never care as much as a parent, so 1 to 12 is surely compromising on the children well being. I would gladly consider parents rather than women, but for the vast majority of human history it appears that females have been rather focusing on taking care of home and children. Things can be arranged differently, but there are surely some deep rooted reasons as to the adoption of the role fulfilled by women for so long, and it must have shown superiority over having men take that role since it has survived across very different cultures. We aren't hunter gatherers, we are even past the sedentary model that organised societies for millenia, so models can and better be questioned, but the childcare dead end needs to be looked at the way it is. It is not working. Yes children grow up, I give you that. And of course it is natural for women who were mostly taking care of their own children to find an occupation, work is one. My comment was in the context of the child care chaos we've created. Not in the context of trying to hijack the thread into claiming women should not be in the workplace.
- dboreham 5y ago
  I don't think it was dogmatism -- it was the need to have money. The cost of living rose such that families needed two incomes.
  - kwhitefoot 5y ago
    Even where it is not strictly necessary for women to work having women in the workforce can be an economic advantage. For instance it is plausible that the increasing proportion of women in work since the 1950s has contributed as much to Norway's economy as the oil.
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    It is dogmatism. Just look at the propaganda from the 50s and 60s. And all the way to today, it is less cheesy but nonetheless propagandist: schools educating boys and girls to get jobs, encouraging girls to be more ambitious, campaigns to get women in industries they are not interested in, and to fight for equal pay. Add to that how politically incorrect the comments I made are. If that is not a dogma, I don't know what is.
    - dboreham 5y ago
      "the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others" So you're saying that the general progression away from the patriarchy wasn't evidence-based?
- Misdicorl 5y ago
  I agree with your conclusion. Childcare is a societal issue that needs to be addressed at the societal level. Women who stay at home is a poppycock solution. At a cynical minimum it wastes tremendous resources. I want smart, competent, engaged women to have children. I also want them to choose how to direct their considerable energies as they see fit.
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    I'm all with you. I'm denouncing the dogma that put women to work. It doesn't imply that women should be kept off the work force.
  - Frost1x 5y ago
    If we make childcare a societal issue then we need to broaden that to make it easier for anyone and everyone to not only care for children but have children. There are plenty of those who want children but can't have them for a variety of reasons, some of which are other related costs (medical, legal adoption, etc.). If you select childcare alone you bias towards those can easily have children which can foster resentment and opposition for tax based support. We already do this a bit where everyone pays for for public schooling regardless to if they have children or not and we also subsidize parents further by allowing them to be claimed as dependents. Let's not keep this limited and make it so anyone wanting a child through a socially acceptable method be able to afford them long term since ultimately that's more generically what we're taking about.
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  I think you could have preserved the good points if you had removed what I perceive as sexism. Instead of saying the problem is having put women to work, the issue is that costs (due to larger houses, desire for luxuries, and generally keeping up with the Joneses) have increased. They have also increased because incomes have increased, and the ways in which to spend your money have also increased. It has nothing to do with genders - it has to do with the carrying cost of a household nowadays is tied to dual incomes (+ housing and health care costs have eaten up a lot of surplus income)
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    It does have to do with sex. There are of course exceptions, but women are naturally more equipped and inclined to be nurturers and caregivers, and men providers, especially for young children. It is also why women are disproportionate in early childhood care and education jobs (it gets somewhat more even with older kids; e.g there is a much higher proportion of male teachers at most high schools compared to elementary schools or preschool/daycare).
    - hirako2000 5y ago
      It is sad to see the most logical comment out there is getting downvoted given the logical aptitudes of this community. Statistics show you are right, evolutionary biology says you are right.
      - edmundsauto 5y ago
        Evolutionary bio makes psychology look like Newtonian physics, in terms of objectivity and generalizability. Statistics show the combined result of nature and nurture. How would you even begin to design an ethical study that could prove causation?
        hirako2000 5y ago
        Stats and evolutionary biology converge on this topic. On the opposite side, we have politically loaded opinions.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  FWIW, I think your argument would earn a lot more consideration if you used a gender neutral term like "partner/spouse/parent" rather than "women", because it distracts from what I charitably assume is the seed of your point. Certainly, my wife and I have ~semi-annual conversations on whether our lifestyle still makes sense (2 parents working, 2 kids under 5 in daycare:). There's definitely room to discuss that on societal level too. But there's no immediate assumption that my wife would necessarily be the one to quit work and spend extra time with kids - we're both engaged parents, both have our strengths and weaknesses, and once breastfeeding stage was complete both equally capable of parenting; and at the same time have both been career oriented and hold very successful positions. in short: "Are we as society on average supporting the model of two parents working" - a reasonable even crucial discussion to have. "Should women be working" - hopefully settled a long time ago and anybody still questioning this will seem regressive at least, misogynistic more likely :-/
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    Point taken. My other comment hopefully clarifies the rather provocative choice of terms. I think the debate hasn't been settled though. It wasn't so long ago that women were, for the most part, prioritising being a successful housewives rather than their careers. Surely they had little to no choice since society expected just that from them. I wouldn't argue that the pressure wasn't forcing their hands, but was a model where the roles were gender defined. The good thing with clearly defined roles for something as challenging as being a parent is that one can work towards developing the required abilities to become an adult well equipped when family comes around. I do see your point though. Your parental situation is not a rarety any longer, a gender based role assignment can't de facto be most adequate. I don't have a desire to regress. It does seem to me we have regressed though. We created created society of kids at day care then schools, and are only starting to see the contradictions that come with that.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    Two parents work 5 days a week because family houses cost so much they're unaffordable unless you have two parents working. If the norm was instead working 2/3 days a week for less pay, there would be less money to spend on houses, so prices would come down (because the money that's charged is what can be afforded) But part time jobs are nowhere near as common as full time jobs - especially for professionals. Having parents looking after kids is a far better solution than outsourcing parenting to an external company, but it's far less profitable, and reduces things like GDP and stock markets, which is bad.
- mcv 5y ago
  The big thing that went wrong when women went to work, is that it didn't really help households in any way. What should have happened is that either households doubled their income, or each earner would work only 3 days a week at most. Instead, thanks to decades of stagnating wages and rising housing costs, households wouldn't have any more money to spend, but have a lot less time. What should have been a great deal turned into a terrible deal. Unequal pay meant that initially, men didn't want to work any less when their wives started working, rising housing costs and child care ate up pretty much all the extra income, and stagnating wages meant that even as the pay gap closed, households still weren't getting ahead. We're overworked and underpaid, and employers just got more productivity for the same money as before. We should go to a 24 hour working week.
jseliger 5y ago
I don't know that there is much the government can do Real estate is much of the cost keeping childcare high, particularly in big cities, which is to say left-leaning cities, and some movement is afoot to address this problem: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/opinion/supply-side-progressivism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/opinion/supply-side-progr.... If cost of housing for the workers themselves is high, they'll also be forced to demand higher wages to compensate: https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-e...
- jeromegv 5y ago
  I think a lot of people are now classifying NIMBY people as conservative, after all, they are advocating for the status quo and increase value of their personal property.
  - MichaelBurge 5y ago
    I don't think people care about property values. Otherwise they'd petition to have their house rezoned as high-density commercial/industrial, since properties with good zoning sell for a lot more.
unpolloloco 5y ago
And to add some more nuance to point 4: there were a LOT of people who could have retired years ago, but chose not to for various reasons. This was their reason. I've seen estimates as high as 2M extra people in the US have just flat out retired due to covid (some left under their own volition, some not - but few of them are coming back). This isn't just old people either - early retirees are a sizeable contingent here.
- Arete314159 5y ago
  The estimates I saw were 3.5 million took early retirement. Also, sorry this is grim, but the pandemic has also killed hundreds of thousands of people. Many of them were workers.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    Your second point, grim as it may be, is probably worth larger consideration. I'm projecting here, but I believe many of them were the kind of people that had 3 jobs in order to make ends meet and couldn't take time off to get the vaccine, and the subtext is that the economy was actually more reliant on that tiny pool of people (<0.2% of Americans) than we realized!
    - unpolloloco 5y ago
      Your point still stands (those people had high contact jobs), but most of the people who died did so prior to vaccine availability. It's only been the past ~4-5 months where there's been widespread availability. And there are very few people at this point (in the US) who haven't gotten the vaccine solely because of their scheduling (though that reason might be cited as a clean justification!). It's clearly vaccine hesitancy...
    - esyir 5y ago
      I'd doubt it. Those in said positions are the younger portion of the population and thus at dramatically lower risk of death.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
All you have to do is require companies to offer child care facilities when building real estate. Having a parent just a few minutes away makes working and parenting more possible with young children.
cecilpl2 5y ago
> I don't know that there is much the government can do. Universal subsidized childcare like most developed countries?
- Clubber 5y ago
  Childcare lobby doesn't pay enough for that. All joking aside, I wonder if some people had one of those near-death experiences during the pandemic and realized wasting the only life you have slaving away at some dump for chump change wasn't a great path to be on.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- PraetorianGourd 5y ago
  It’s not a matter of access for many. The universal subsidized childcare of primary education was closed for over a year, and subsequently private childcare couldn’t keep up with demand. Combined with the fact that existing childcare providers couldn’t necessarily expand their sizes due to distancing needs and labor shortages
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  I wonder about Universal Childcare, and it's not that it's not needed. I wonder who's going to provide it. Being male, I don't know if I would even venture into the area. I couldn't imagine being interrogated by parents, and the whole vetting process. And yes--it might make more sence for a woman to open up a child care facility? The list of government regulation must get onerious too? Where are we going to find all these babysitters? Second--the money will come on the form of a federal tax credit. Why do I feel that money will end up going to other things a young family needs? At this point, I'd rather see a Basic Income that goes to all low income Americans. They could use the money for anything.
  - gizmo686 5y ago
    Tax credits are not the only mechanism for government funding. We already have a very successful model of government provided childcare: the public school system.
rossdavidh 5y ago
Interesting second order affect: lack of childcare -> smaller available labor pool -> disproportionate difficulty hiring in childcare (because it doesn't pay well) -> continued lack of childcare We could actually be looking at a bistable system, in which (because childcare jobs are towards the bottom end of the pay spectrum) you don't get available childcare unless you have surplus labor, and until you have available childcare you will have a labor shortage. The solution would be the pay more for childcare, but that money has to come from somewhere, and a lot of people who require it cannot pay a lot more. A conundrum...
- fragmede 5y ago
  If only there were some sort of system, by which the richest people would give money to some sort of a shared pool, and the money in that pool could be given out to pay of childcare. It's pretty out there, I know!
  - rossdavidh 5y ago
    Yeah, crazy talk...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - washadjeffmad 5y ago
    Heck, or they could just fund the DoD budget exclusively from the top marginal tax rate because that's who's profiting off war anyway.
- yardie 5y ago
  You could almost say that reliable childcare is necessary infrastructure as bridges and highways are. Almost.
- TheSocialAndrew 5y ago
  We could always invite in more au-pairs using the J1 visa. Many au pairs end up taking up college here and switch to an F1 visa. This system is tested and works well.
sologoub 5y ago
Pandemic of course messed with much of the social infra the world over, BUT no real social option for child care in a developed country is a very USA problem. Good family leave policy (1 year+) and wide availability of kindergarten-type facilities (no it’s not a “grade” in childcare, it’s a type of a facility) with universal guarantee of availability are the norm elsewhere and do wonders to enable parents to work. When caring for a newborn for more than a few weeks means one becomes unemployed, no wonder families decide to not play that game until kids are a bit older. Otherwise, you look for a job just to risk needing a leave that can result in loss of this job if the kid gets sufficiently sick.
- refurb 5y ago
  And when childcare facilities close due to Covid?
  - specialist 5y ago
    Adapt. Restructure child care to account for pandemic. Smaller group sizes, no intra-mingling, contact tracing, nordic style outdoor classes, etc. Ya, it costs more. Whatever. Investing in childcare is LONG overdue.
bentlegen 5y ago
Subsidized childcare. That’s it, that’s the secret. Societies that value their workforce use tax dollars to fund childcare.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  Or better yet, government-run healthcare. Subsidies have the unfortunate problem of being swallowed whole by rentseekers (see: college loans vs college tuition costs).
  - EricE 5y ago
    >(see: college loans vs college tuition costs) College is easily five to ten times more expensive then when I went in the 90's - and the vast majority of that increase is from government guaranteed student loans. No risk on the part of the schools, so they jack tuition up with a bunch of amenities because they are getting paid, no matter what. Handing out $100K+ to people with little guarantee of getting it back? Where else can that happen but within our insane student loan system?!? Articles like this is what brought it home to me: https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/tricked-college-campuses-water-parks-luxury-dorms/story?id=26164491 https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/tricked-college-campuses-wa... Give me a break! I think that schools should be on the hook for at least half a loan if someone can't get a job and earn enough that will let them pay the loan back within a fixed time - say six years. That would tamp down a lot of this utterly unrealistic spending for degrees that have little chance of ever returning any meaningful value for what is paid out.
gajjanag 5y ago
There is one aspect that helps with this in certain cultures, namely grandparents. Grandparents are usually thrilled to spend time with young grandchildren. This is an age old mechanism that mostly alleviates two problems simultaneously - old age care, and the two working parents situation. The other option (which also works nearly as well) is what other commentators mentioned - European style subsidized childcare/old age support. The USA shuns the first culturally (I get strange looks from people when I say I am happy working and living with my parents), and shuns the second culturally as well as politically. Some awareness/willingness to learn from history/other cultures would fix that, but I am not holding my breath.
- Chyzwar 5y ago
  Grandparents only work if your parents retired or your grandparents are alive and functional. Current generations millennials and Z have grandparents dead(shorter average lifespan, waiting with having children) and working parents(economic situation, better healthcare). Not only that, but you also need to live close by. We are migrating way more than before, there are whole cities in Europe and US left with retirees. You also need to have a larger house to host grandparents. Millennials have a worse economic situation than boomers. Current life of young people look like: — Get expensive degree — Move to expensive city for jobs — Hard to find partner — Cannot afford to start family, postpone children — Have children without family support — Get into high level of debt There two things happening — People have less or no children. This lead to increased taxation and increasing retirement age in many countries. It often causes social unrest when governments try uncontrolled external immigration to fill the gaps. — People try to live frugal lives, reduce spending and try to save for retirement individually. This disturbs housing market and stall country economy and destroy luxury brands.
  - patentatt 5y ago
    Also your parents have to not suck. My ‘greatest generation’ grandmother took care of me a lot when I was a kid, and my children’s two boomer grandmothers really can’t be bothered. Yet another anti-boomer trope, but so real in my life.
tibiahurried 5y ago
> the cost of childcare for both children encroaches the income of one parent alone That's the case in the US. In countries where family welfare policies exist and where governments incentive and support families: that's hardly the case. Childcare is pretty much free or does not cost as nearly as much as in the US. I think the US may be an advanced country for many aspects, but it is just ridiculously behind when it comes to healthcare and families.
axiolite 5y ago
> When families have 2 children under 5, the cost of childcare for both children encroaches the income of one parent alone. Except: 1) That was true BEFORE the pandemic, yet there was no labor shortage. 2) Salaries have gone up due to the (temporary) labor shortage, so it should be easier for more parents to justify childcare costs. So I don't see that it has anything to do with the current situation.
- sathackr 5y ago
  Childcare costs have gone up also. As have most other cost of living metrics. That's what inflation is. Full time child care in Brooklyn, NY was $2000/mo for 1 child when I inquired earlier this year.
sudosysgen 5y ago
Childcare can definitely be made much more efficient. Here in Quebec we have 7$/day and 8.5$/day childcare, the total budget is 2.5 billion dollars for an 8.6 million people population.
- refurb 5y ago
  I’ve heard getting spots can be exceedingly difficult. Funded, but not really funded so readily accessible.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Getting spots in a CPE can be very difficult. Getting spots in a family daycare that's not fully regulated is really not that difficult, unless you live in a really underserved area. Where I live, there are ads for spots in family daycare, and these aren't that uncommon. It's not what's best but it's better than having to quit your job. It could definitely use an extra 30% of funding, but there is also a severe lack of trained staff for high quality childcare because people just don't want to deal with that.
twobitshifter 5y ago
For childcare, it is not just cost-cutting, but that parents discovered that they preferred spending time with their children to wallowing in Outlook all day.
andrekandre 5y ago
> I don't know that there is much the government can do. Childcare facilities actually run on thin margins and turnover is high. State regulations are often aggressive towards child to caretaker ratios. ive heard the 3.5T infrastructure bill will have alot of provisions for childcare, i wonder how much that will help the situation?
CydeWeys 5y ago
> I don't know that there is much the government can do. One super obvious thing the government could do, that many other governments do successfully, is to simply run child cares. First grade used to be the first year of schooling then kindergarten was introduced, and now pre-K is common in a lot of places. Just keep going down a few more years, and boom, child care problem solved. This would solve a lot of the disincentives to having children, so you would think the people complaining about the low birth rate in the US would be in favor of it, and yet ..
- teslabox 5y ago
  While it's a good to think about childcare, something more constructive needs to be done about growing up in the modern world than extending the caging of modern children. John Taylor Gatto (iirc) advised keeping kids out of school as long as possible, as nothing important is learned in the first few grades that wouldn't be learned anyways, or couldn't be learned more efficiently later. http://johntaylorgatto.com/ http://johntaylorgatto.com/ If the government were to extend school-as-childcare, it could be done in a way that restores the ability of children to learn from the real world. I don't know what 4, 5, 6 and 7 year olds should be learning, but imho Pre-K, K, 1st and 2nd grade "classrooms" are stifling. Gatto's essay, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, is all over the interwebs. What did Native Americans teach their 4 year olds?
  - zbrozek 5y ago
    Looking back at my own school experience, I don't think I learned anything of value in the formal lessons of school until third grade. But being around other kids and maturing together was quite-worthwhile. I probably could have done that hanging out with the neighborhood kids playing on the street.
    - CuriouslyC 5y ago
      The experience of being around other children can frequently be pretty awful for a lot of kids. There are a lot of asshole children out there who belong in a zoo rather than a school. Socialization is good, but forced socialization under a poorly run authoritarian regime, not so much.
washadjeffmad 5y ago
Reinforcing your 4th point, I was shocked by how many old mules who had big plans to pack it in until they were 75 suddenly called it quits after a year off with their families. They weren't all the highest earners, but relinquishing their spots in the org chart freed up a lot for the frustrated younger people who put in 10-20 years but could never meaningfully move up, either by responsibility or compensation. I remember the same thing happening in 2008 in the private sector then in 2010 in public but with the opposite effect. So many people that had put everything in the stock market and housing suddenly saw themselves pushing off retirement for another decade. A neighbor offered for me to take over the last 20% of a mortgage on a home because he'd sold his primary residence and had retired to Florida right before the crash, and I still don't know why I turned him down. It would have been a 800% return today, which is just stupid.
tcmart14 5y ago
The child care point has been my wife's and I's position for the past three years. She pretty much did not work a job because it would have cost more to put two in day care than she would have brought in.

hirako2000 5y ago

The dogmatism of putting all women to work for the last 50 years. Here we are, women have gotten their "equal" pay (rightly so) and are nearly all employees or freelancers. After a long battle, so of course childcare like everything else needs paid. Most social workers are women. What's the way out, migrants from poorer countries? Just pushing the problem for later. We are waking up to the fact this model cannot work for the overall population. It has been promoted by those who would greatly benefit from having everyone at work, and echoed by those who would somewhat benefit, and echoed more times all the way down to those who had everything to loose. The problem of childcare cost is unsolvable with women at work, it's as simple as that. At best the average working woman will pay the same as she earns to afford full time child care. But if tax is taken into account, then it won't cover it. Or we squeeze more staff per child. I think it will take some more time for most of us to come around to the reality of a model doomed to fail.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
Many countries have state-run or state-subsidised childcare. Universal or managed childcare - like health care - is one of those things that is a massive drag on the economy if it isn't provided. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/childcare-around-the-world-how-other-countries-do-it-better-1.3626710 https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/childcare-a...
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  Most of the countries with state run daycare have even lower fertility than US has. I don’t think there is a single country with all of: government childcare, high female labor market participation, and above replacement fertility. If anything, the correlation is opposite: the more subsidized the childcare is, the fewer children are born.
  - riffraff 5y ago
    While I agree with your point in general, the Faroe islands might qualify. I do not know why, but they have a 2.4 fertility rate, could be related to an influx of women from poor countries (which in turn might not participate in the workforce, confirming what you state).
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
      If you asked me, I’d say that the most probable cause is that people in Faroe Islands have less opportunity to get Education and build a Career, which makes childbearing more attractive in relative terms, as opportunity cost is lower. For the same reason, policies that in the west make it easier to have Education and Career, like subsidized daycare, end up depressing the fertility even further, contrary to expectations.
IkmoIkmo 5y ago
> The dogmatism of putting all women to work for the last 50 years. > The problem of childcare cost is unsolvable with women at work, it's as simple as that. What kind of nonsense is this? One in six women never go on to have children, it's great news that these women's access to the labour market has improved. Second, childcare ratios aren't 1 to 1. In fact they're about 1 to 4 for babies <1 year, 1 to 10 for 5 year olds, and 1 to 12 at school age. Suppose all women had children (they don't), society still greatly benefits from the efficiency of a childcare ratio as high as 1:12 as opposed to women caring for their child 1:1. Third, children aren't permanently children, and certainly not permanently babies. The first few years requires a lot of parental or private childcare, but afterwards kids mostly go to school for most of the day. A woman will have at least 45 years between adulthood and retirement and most of that kids won't need constant parental care like the first few years. Making sure women stay active in the labour force (even part-time) will greatly help their chances in the labour market throughout their career. Fourth, I see no reason why we're speaking about women rather than about parents. Providing income and childcare are shared responsibilities. It's fine to arrange it in your own family as you wish, but society shouldn't speak about these topics as if they should only apply to women.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  I do expect some sensitivity when daring to question women being in the work force rather than prioritising the care of their own children. Let me be clear first, I entirely agree with you that society shouldn't tell us what is right with this regard. But society has spoken, the dogma of having women be the same as men and get to work. With the pretence of more freedom and independence of course. I don't speak for women, nor men. Each person is free to decide whether they should enter the workforce or not. I'm not advocating that women shouldn't be allowed to work. I disagree with the ratio argument you've proposed, I'm sorry 1 carer for 12 toddlers is undeseriable. Ask any stay-at-home moms how it goes when they get their 3rd kid. And a carer will never care as much as a parent, so 1 to 12 is surely compromising on the children well being. I would gladly consider parents rather than women, but for the vast majority of human history it appears that females have been rather focusing on taking care of home and children. Things can be arranged differently, but there are surely some deep rooted reasons as to the adoption of the role fulfilled by women for so long, and it must have shown superiority over having men take that role since it has survived across very different cultures. We aren't hunter gatherers, we are even past the sedentary model that organised societies for millenia, so models can and better be questioned, but the childcare dead end needs to be looked at the way it is. It is not working. Yes children grow up, I give you that. And of course it is natural for women who were mostly taking care of their own children to find an occupation, work is one. My comment was in the context of the child care chaos we've created. Not in the context of trying to hijack the thread into claiming women should not be in the workplace.
dboreham 5y ago
I don't think it was dogmatism -- it was the need to have money. The cost of living rose such that families needed two incomes.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  Even where it is not strictly necessary for women to work having women in the workforce can be an economic advantage. For instance it is plausible that the increasing proportion of women in work since the 1950s has contributed as much to Norway's economy as the oil.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  It is dogmatism. Just look at the propaganda from the 50s and 60s. And all the way to today, it is less cheesy but nonetheless propagandist: schools educating boys and girls to get jobs, encouraging girls to be more ambitious, campaigns to get women in industries they are not interested in, and to fight for equal pay. Add to that how politically incorrect the comments I made are. If that is not a dogma, I don't know what is.
  - dboreham 5y ago
    "the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others" So you're saying that the general progression away from the patriarchy wasn't evidence-based?
Misdicorl 5y ago
I agree with your conclusion. Childcare is a societal issue that needs to be addressed at the societal level. Women who stay at home is a poppycock solution. At a cynical minimum it wastes tremendous resources. I want smart, competent, engaged women to have children. I also want them to choose how to direct their considerable energies as they see fit.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  I'm all with you. I'm denouncing the dogma that put women to work. It doesn't imply that women should be kept off the work force.
- Frost1x 5y ago
  If we make childcare a societal issue then we need to broaden that to make it easier for anyone and everyone to not only care for children but have children. There are plenty of those who want children but can't have them for a variety of reasons, some of which are other related costs (medical, legal adoption, etc.). If you select childcare alone you bias towards those can easily have children which can foster resentment and opposition for tax based support. We already do this a bit where everyone pays for for public schooling regardless to if they have children or not and we also subsidize parents further by allowing them to be claimed as dependents. Let's not keep this limited and make it so anyone wanting a child through a socially acceptable method be able to afford them long term since ultimately that's more generically what we're taking about.
edmundsauto 5y ago
I think you could have preserved the good points if you had removed what I perceive as sexism. Instead of saying the problem is having put women to work, the issue is that costs (due to larger houses, desire for luxuries, and generally keeping up with the Joneses) have increased. They have also increased because incomes have increased, and the ways in which to spend your money have also increased. It has nothing to do with genders - it has to do with the carrying cost of a household nowadays is tied to dual incomes (+ housing and health care costs have eaten up a lot of surplus income)
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  It does have to do with sex. There are of course exceptions, but women are naturally more equipped and inclined to be nurturers and caregivers, and men providers, especially for young children. It is also why women are disproportionate in early childhood care and education jobs (it gets somewhat more even with older kids; e.g there is a much higher proportion of male teachers at most high schools compared to elementary schools or preschool/daycare).
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    It is sad to see the most logical comment out there is getting downvoted given the logical aptitudes of this community. Statistics show you are right, evolutionary biology says you are right.
    - edmundsauto 5y ago
      Evolutionary bio makes psychology look like Newtonian physics, in terms of objectivity and generalizability. Statistics show the combined result of nature and nurture. How would you even begin to design an ethical study that could prove causation?
      - hirako2000 5y ago
        Stats and evolutionary biology converge on this topic. On the opposite side, we have politically loaded opinions.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
FWIW, I think your argument would earn a lot more consideration if you used a gender neutral term like "partner/spouse/parent" rather than "women", because it distracts from what I charitably assume is the seed of your point. Certainly, my wife and I have ~semi-annual conversations on whether our lifestyle still makes sense (2 parents working, 2 kids under 5 in daycare:). There's definitely room to discuss that on societal level too. But there's no immediate assumption that my wife would necessarily be the one to quit work and spend extra time with kids - we're both engaged parents, both have our strengths and weaknesses, and once breastfeeding stage was complete both equally capable of parenting; and at the same time have both been career oriented and hold very successful positions. in short: "Are we as society on average supporting the model of two parents working" - a reasonable even crucial discussion to have. "Should women be working" - hopefully settled a long time ago and anybody still questioning this will seem regressive at least, misogynistic more likely :-/
- hirako2000 5y ago
  Point taken. My other comment hopefully clarifies the rather provocative choice of terms. I think the debate hasn't been settled though. It wasn't so long ago that women were, for the most part, prioritising being a successful housewives rather than their careers. Surely they had little to no choice since society expected just that from them. I wouldn't argue that the pressure wasn't forcing their hands, but was a model where the roles were gender defined. The good thing with clearly defined roles for something as challenging as being a parent is that one can work towards developing the required abilities to become an adult well equipped when family comes around. I do see your point though. Your parental situation is not a rarety any longer, a gender based role assignment can't de facto be most adequate. I don't have a desire to regress. It does seem to me we have regressed though. We created created society of kids at day care then schools, and are only starting to see the contradictions that come with that.
- iso1210 5y ago
  Two parents work 5 days a week because family houses cost so much they're unaffordable unless you have two parents working. If the norm was instead working 2/3 days a week for less pay, there would be less money to spend on houses, so prices would come down (because the money that's charged is what can be afforded) But part time jobs are nowhere near as common as full time jobs - especially for professionals. Having parents looking after kids is a far better solution than outsourcing parenting to an external company, but it's far less profitable, and reduces things like GDP and stock markets, which is bad.
mcv 5y ago
The big thing that went wrong when women went to work, is that it didn't really help households in any way. What should have happened is that either households doubled their income, or each earner would work only 3 days a week at most. Instead, thanks to decades of stagnating wages and rising housing costs, households wouldn't have any more money to spend, but have a lot less time. What should have been a great deal turned into a terrible deal. Unequal pay meant that initially, men didn't want to work any less when their wives started working, rising housing costs and child care ate up pretty much all the extra income, and stagnating wages meant that even as the pay gap closed, households still weren't getting ahead. We're overworked and underpaid, and employers just got more productivity for the same money as before. We should go to a 24 hour working week.

jseliger 5y ago

I don't know that there is much the government can do Real estate is much of the cost keeping childcare high, particularly in big cities, which is to say left-leaning cities, and some movement is afoot to address this problem: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/opinion/supply-side-progressivism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/opinion/supply-side-progr.... If cost of housing for the workers themselves is high, they'll also be forced to demand higher wages to compensate: https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-e...

jeromegv 5y ago
I think a lot of people are now classifying NIMBY people as conservative, after all, they are advocating for the status quo and increase value of their personal property.
- MichaelBurge 5y ago
  I don't think people care about property values. Otherwise they'd petition to have their house rezoned as high-density commercial/industrial, since properties with good zoning sell for a lot more.

unpolloloco 5y ago

And to add some more nuance to point 4: there were a LOT of people who could have retired years ago, but chose not to for various reasons. This was their reason. I've seen estimates as high as 2M extra people in the US have just flat out retired due to covid (some left under their own volition, some not - but few of them are coming back). This isn't just old people either - early retirees are a sizeable contingent here.

Arete314159 5y ago
The estimates I saw were 3.5 million took early retirement. Also, sorry this is grim, but the pandemic has also killed hundreds of thousands of people. Many of them were workers.
- fragmede 5y ago
  Your second point, grim as it may be, is probably worth larger consideration. I'm projecting here, but I believe many of them were the kind of people that had 3 jobs in order to make ends meet and couldn't take time off to get the vaccine, and the subtext is that the economy was actually more reliant on that tiny pool of people (<0.2% of Americans) than we realized!
  - unpolloloco 5y ago
    Your point still stands (those people had high contact jobs), but most of the people who died did so prior to vaccine availability. It's only been the past ~4-5 months where there's been widespread availability. And there are very few people at this point (in the US) who haven't gotten the vaccine solely because of their scheduling (though that reason might be cited as a clean justification!). It's clearly vaccine hesitancy...
  - esyir 5y ago
    I'd doubt it. Those in said positions are the younger portion of the population and thus at dramatically lower risk of death.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

All you have to do is require companies to offer child care facilities when building real estate. Having a parent just a few minutes away makes working and parenting more possible with young children.

cecilpl2 5y ago

> I don't know that there is much the government can do. Universal subsidized childcare like most developed countries?

Clubber 5y ago
Childcare lobby doesn't pay enough for that. All joking aside, I wonder if some people had one of those near-death experiences during the pandemic and realized wasting the only life you have slaving away at some dump for chump change wasn't a great path to be on.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
PraetorianGourd 5y ago
It’s not a matter of access for many. The universal subsidized childcare of primary education was closed for over a year, and subsequently private childcare couldn’t keep up with demand. Combined with the fact that existing childcare providers couldn’t necessarily expand their sizes due to distancing needs and labor shortages
hellbannedguy 5y ago
I wonder about Universal Childcare, and it's not that it's not needed. I wonder who's going to provide it. Being male, I don't know if I would even venture into the area. I couldn't imagine being interrogated by parents, and the whole vetting process. And yes--it might make more sence for a woman to open up a child care facility? The list of government regulation must get onerious too? Where are we going to find all these babysitters? Second--the money will come on the form of a federal tax credit. Why do I feel that money will end up going to other things a young family needs? At this point, I'd rather see a Basic Income that goes to all low income Americans. They could use the money for anything.
- gizmo686 5y ago
  Tax credits are not the only mechanism for government funding. We already have a very successful model of government provided childcare: the public school system.

rossdavidh 5y ago

Interesting second order affect: lack of childcare -> smaller available labor pool -> disproportionate difficulty hiring in childcare (because it doesn't pay well) -> continued lack of childcare We could actually be looking at a bistable system, in which (because childcare jobs are towards the bottom end of the pay spectrum) you don't get available childcare unless you have surplus labor, and until you have available childcare you will have a labor shortage. The solution would be the pay more for childcare, but that money has to come from somewhere, and a lot of people who require it cannot pay a lot more. A conundrum...

fragmede 5y ago
If only there were some sort of system, by which the richest people would give money to some sort of a shared pool, and the money in that pool could be given out to pay of childcare. It's pretty out there, I know!
- rossdavidh 5y ago
  Yeah, crazy talk...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- washadjeffmad 5y ago
  Heck, or they could just fund the DoD budget exclusively from the top marginal tax rate because that's who's profiting off war anyway.
yardie 5y ago
You could almost say that reliable childcare is necessary infrastructure as bridges and highways are. Almost.
TheSocialAndrew 5y ago
We could always invite in more au-pairs using the J1 visa. Many au pairs end up taking up college here and switch to an F1 visa. This system is tested and works well.

sologoub 5y ago

Pandemic of course messed with much of the social infra the world over, BUT no real social option for child care in a developed country is a very USA problem. Good family leave policy (1 year+) and wide availability of kindergarten-type facilities (no it’s not a “grade” in childcare, it’s a type of a facility) with universal guarantee of availability are the norm elsewhere and do wonders to enable parents to work. When caring for a newborn for more than a few weeks means one becomes unemployed, no wonder families decide to not play that game until kids are a bit older. Otherwise, you look for a job just to risk needing a leave that can result in loss of this job if the kid gets sufficiently sick.

refurb 5y ago
And when childcare facilities close due to Covid?
- specialist 5y ago
  Adapt. Restructure child care to account for pandemic. Smaller group sizes, no intra-mingling, contact tracing, nordic style outdoor classes, etc. Ya, it costs more. Whatever. Investing in childcare is LONG overdue.

bentlegen 5y ago

Subsidized childcare. That’s it, that’s the secret. Societies that value their workforce use tax dollars to fund childcare.

CydeWeys 5y ago
Or better yet, government-run healthcare. Subsidies have the unfortunate problem of being swallowed whole by rentseekers (see: college loans vs college tuition costs).
- EricE 5y ago
  >(see: college loans vs college tuition costs) College is easily five to ten times more expensive then when I went in the 90's - and the vast majority of that increase is from government guaranteed student loans. No risk on the part of the schools, so they jack tuition up with a bunch of amenities because they are getting paid, no matter what. Handing out $100K+ to people with little guarantee of getting it back? Where else can that happen but within our insane student loan system?!? Articles like this is what brought it home to me: https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/tricked-college-campuses-water-parks-luxury-dorms/story?id=26164491 https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/tricked-college-campuses-wa... Give me a break! I think that schools should be on the hook for at least half a loan if someone can't get a job and earn enough that will let them pay the loan back within a fixed time - say six years. That would tamp down a lot of this utterly unrealistic spending for degrees that have little chance of ever returning any meaningful value for what is paid out.

gajjanag 5y ago

There is one aspect that helps with this in certain cultures, namely grandparents. Grandparents are usually thrilled to spend time with young grandchildren. This is an age old mechanism that mostly alleviates two problems simultaneously - old age care, and the two working parents situation. The other option (which also works nearly as well) is what other commentators mentioned - European style subsidized childcare/old age support. The USA shuns the first culturally (I get strange looks from people when I say I am happy working and living with my parents), and shuns the second culturally as well as politically. Some awareness/willingness to learn from history/other cultures would fix that, but I am not holding my breath.

Chyzwar 5y ago
Grandparents only work if your parents retired or your grandparents are alive and functional. Current generations millennials and Z have grandparents dead(shorter average lifespan, waiting with having children) and working parents(economic situation, better healthcare). Not only that, but you also need to live close by. We are migrating way more than before, there are whole cities in Europe and US left with retirees. You also need to have a larger house to host grandparents. Millennials have a worse economic situation than boomers. Current life of young people look like: — Get expensive degree — Move to expensive city for jobs — Hard to find partner — Cannot afford to start family, postpone children — Have children without family support — Get into high level of debt There two things happening — People have less or no children. This lead to increased taxation and increasing retirement age in many countries. It often causes social unrest when governments try uncontrolled external immigration to fill the gaps. — People try to live frugal lives, reduce spending and try to save for retirement individually. This disturbs housing market and stall country economy and destroy luxury brands.
- patentatt 5y ago
  Also your parents have to not suck. My ‘greatest generation’ grandmother took care of me a lot when I was a kid, and my children’s two boomer grandmothers really can’t be bothered. Yet another anti-boomer trope, but so real in my life.

tibiahurried 5y ago

> the cost of childcare for both children encroaches the income of one parent alone That's the case in the US. In countries where family welfare policies exist and where governments incentive and support families: that's hardly the case. Childcare is pretty much free or does not cost as nearly as much as in the US. I think the US may be an advanced country for many aspects, but it is just ridiculously behind when it comes to healthcare and families.

axiolite 5y ago

> When families have 2 children under 5, the cost of childcare for both children encroaches the income of one parent alone. Except: 1) That was true BEFORE the pandemic, yet there was no labor shortage. 2) Salaries have gone up due to the (temporary) labor shortage, so it should be easier for more parents to justify childcare costs. So I don't see that it has anything to do with the current situation.

sathackr 5y ago
Childcare costs have gone up also. As have most other cost of living metrics. That's what inflation is. Full time child care in Brooklyn, NY was $2000/mo for 1 child when I inquired earlier this year.

sudosysgen 5y ago

Childcare can definitely be made much more efficient. Here in Quebec we have 7$/day and 8.5$/day childcare, the total budget is 2.5 billion dollars for an 8.6 million people population.

refurb 5y ago
I’ve heard getting spots can be exceedingly difficult. Funded, but not really funded so readily accessible.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Getting spots in a CPE can be very difficult. Getting spots in a family daycare that's not fully regulated is really not that difficult, unless you live in a really underserved area. Where I live, there are ads for spots in family daycare, and these aren't that uncommon. It's not what's best but it's better than having to quit your job. It could definitely use an extra 30% of funding, but there is also a severe lack of trained staff for high quality childcare because people just don't want to deal with that.

twobitshifter 5y ago

For childcare, it is not just cost-cutting, but that parents discovered that they preferred spending time with their children to wallowing in Outlook all day.

andrekandre 5y ago

> I don't know that there is much the government can do. Childcare facilities actually run on thin margins and turnover is high. State regulations are often aggressive towards child to caretaker ratios. ive heard the 3.5T infrastructure bill will have alot of provisions for childcare, i wonder how much that will help the situation?

CydeWeys 5y ago

> I don't know that there is much the government can do. One super obvious thing the government could do, that many other governments do successfully, is to simply run child cares. First grade used to be the first year of schooling then kindergarten was introduced, and now pre-K is common in a lot of places. Just keep going down a few more years, and boom, child care problem solved. This would solve a lot of the disincentives to having children, so you would think the people complaining about the low birth rate in the US would be in favor of it, and yet ..

teslabox 5y ago
While it's a good to think about childcare, something more constructive needs to be done about growing up in the modern world than extending the caging of modern children. John Taylor Gatto (iirc) advised keeping kids out of school as long as possible, as nothing important is learned in the first few grades that wouldn't be learned anyways, or couldn't be learned more efficiently later. http://johntaylorgatto.com/ http://johntaylorgatto.com/ If the government were to extend school-as-childcare, it could be done in a way that restores the ability of children to learn from the real world. I don't know what 4, 5, 6 and 7 year olds should be learning, but imho Pre-K, K, 1st and 2nd grade "classrooms" are stifling. Gatto's essay, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, is all over the interwebs. What did Native Americans teach their 4 year olds?
- zbrozek 5y ago
  Looking back at my own school experience, I don't think I learned anything of value in the formal lessons of school until third grade. But being around other kids and maturing together was quite-worthwhile. I probably could have done that hanging out with the neighborhood kids playing on the street.
  - CuriouslyC 5y ago
    The experience of being around other children can frequently be pretty awful for a lot of kids. There are a lot of asshole children out there who belong in a zoo rather than a school. Socialization is good, but forced socialization under a poorly run authoritarian regime, not so much.

washadjeffmad 5y ago

Reinforcing your 4th point, I was shocked by how many old mules who had big plans to pack it in until they were 75 suddenly called it quits after a year off with their families. They weren't all the highest earners, but relinquishing their spots in the org chart freed up a lot for the frustrated younger people who put in 10-20 years but could never meaningfully move up, either by responsibility or compensation. I remember the same thing happening in 2008 in the private sector then in 2010 in public but with the opposite effect. So many people that had put everything in the stock market and housing suddenly saw themselves pushing off retirement for another decade. A neighbor offered for me to take over the last 20% of a mortgage on a home because he'd sold his primary residence and had retired to Florida right before the crash, and I still don't know why I turned him down. It would have been a 800% return today, which is just stupid.

tcmart14 5y ago

The child care point has been my wife's and I's position for the past three years. She pretty much did not work a job because it would have cost more to put two in day care than she would have brought in.