5 ms·

Better than stay-at-home mothers not re-entering the workforce. Which is the alternative.

decremental 5y ago
I don't get why mothers not being at home is seen as bad. As though it's a greater good for society that instead they're punching in numbers into a spreadsheet at a widget factory. Sounds to me like the only winner there is the widget factory. It didn't used to have to be this way and maybe we should figure out why it has to be that way now, then fix that.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  It's not seen as bad. There's nothing wrong with mothers being at home, if they want to be. The observation is that women, like all beings with agency, don't always want to be at-home mothers and we (modern, liberal societies) broadly agree that people shouldn't be forced or economically coerced into doing things they don't want to do.
  - refurb 5y ago
    We as a society broadly agree people shouldn’t be economically coerced into doing things we don’t want to? That’s not true in the least. We use economic incentives to drive desirable behavior everywhere.
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      Coercion is a high bar, one that not every incentive or nudge clears.
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    I agree with this.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  >As though it's a greater good for society that instead they're punching in numbers into a spreadsheet at a widget factory. It might not be the greater good for society, but it is good for women who want to be self sufficient. >It didn't used to have to be this way and maybe we should figure out why it has to be that way now, then fix that. It turns out that many women want to have financial freedom (i.e. freedom), and are willing to sacrifice a lot on the homemaking front to have it.
  - decremental 5y ago
    Financial freedom in their marriage? If you meant single moms then they have to be able to make money. That much is obvious. But then let's address broken homes. If we're going to tackle big problems that one seems like it would have the greatest impact. Not least of which for the kids, who seem to not be factored into this conversation at all.
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      Financial freedom, full stop. People stay in abusive, unhealthy, etc. relationships because of financial dependence all the time. "Broken homes" have nothing to do with it.
      - decremental 5y ago
        You're not wrong. People do stay in relationships due to financial dependence. Is that an outlier that can be addressed? Does the existence of an outlying circumstance require a shifting of society? Broken homes, as an aside to my questions here, have so much more to do with current day problems than almost any other issue. Can we find a way to tackle all of these issues? Right now it feels like scorched Earth.
woodruffw 5y ago
No, that isn't the alternative. The alternative is having an incentive for having a sufficient number of children to prevent population decline, combined with separate subsidies for child support (professional childcare, etc.). Even better, drop the emphasis on mothers: allow either parent to claim the tax deduction, or devise a structure in the deduction is graduated with a return to the workforce. There are plenty of reasonable ways to incentivize people to have children, nearly all of which are applied elsewhere in Europe while also helping (if not outright avoiding) attrition in the workforce. Hungary's approach represents the significant deviation here.
- refurb 5y ago
  Exactly just outsource raising of the child so we can extract the maximum economic benefit from every citizen. Don’t waste your time raising the next generation! That doesn’t boost our GDP!
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    This is a pretty ridiculous distortion: not only is childcare not "outsourcing" of one's child's development, but it's also one of the oldest and most traditional vocations. It predates our modern economic structures by thousands of years.

I don't get why mothers not being at home is seen as bad. As though it's a greater good for society that instead they're punching in numbers into a spreadsheet at a widget factory. Sounds to me like the only winner there is the widget factory. It didn't used to have to be this way and maybe we should figure out why it has to be that way now, then fix that.

woodruffw 5y ago
It's not seen as bad. There's nothing wrong with mothers being at home, if they want to be. The observation is that women, like all beings with agency, don't always want to be at-home mothers and we (modern, liberal societies) broadly agree that people shouldn't be forced or economically coerced into doing things they don't want to do.
- refurb 5y ago
  We as a society broadly agree people shouldn’t be economically coerced into doing things we don’t want to? That’s not true in the least. We use economic incentives to drive desirable behavior everywhere.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    Coercion is a high bar, one that not every incentive or nudge clears.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  I agree with this.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
>As though it's a greater good for society that instead they're punching in numbers into a spreadsheet at a widget factory. It might not be the greater good for society, but it is good for women who want to be self sufficient. >It didn't used to have to be this way and maybe we should figure out why it has to be that way now, then fix that. It turns out that many women want to have financial freedom (i.e. freedom), and are willing to sacrifice a lot on the homemaking front to have it.
- decremental 5y ago
  Financial freedom in their marriage? If you meant single moms then they have to be able to make money. That much is obvious. But then let's address broken homes. If we're going to tackle big problems that one seems like it would have the greatest impact. Not least of which for the kids, who seem to not be factored into this conversation at all.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    Financial freedom, full stop. People stay in abusive, unhealthy, etc. relationships because of financial dependence all the time. "Broken homes" have nothing to do with it.
    - decremental 5y ago
      You're not wrong. People do stay in relationships due to financial dependence. Is that an outlier that can be addressed? Does the existence of an outlying circumstance require a shifting of society? Broken homes, as an aside to my questions here, have so much more to do with current day problems than almost any other issue. Can we find a way to tackle all of these issues? Right now it feels like scorched Earth.

woodruffw 5y ago

No, that isn't the alternative. The alternative is having an incentive for having a sufficient number of children to prevent population decline, combined with separate subsidies for child support (professional childcare, etc.). Even better, drop the emphasis on mothers: allow either parent to claim the tax deduction, or devise a structure in the deduction is graduated with a return to the workforce. There are plenty of reasonable ways to incentivize people to have children, nearly all of which are applied elsewhere in Europe while also helping (if not outright avoiding) attrition in the workforce. Hungary's approach represents the significant deviation here.

refurb 5y ago
Exactly just outsource raising of the child so we can extract the maximum economic benefit from every citizen. Don’t waste your time raising the next generation! That doesn’t boost our GDP!
- woodruffw 5y ago
  This is a pretty ridiculous distortion: not only is childcare not "outsourcing" of one's child's development, but it's also one of the oldest and most traditional vocations. It predates our modern economic structures by thousands of years.