No matter who pays for it, raising children is time consuming. And time is becoming more valuable.
Why Child Care Is So Expensive
41–50 of 522 posts
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#42The thing with female workforce participation: isn't it just symptom of the society getting poorer. My wife worked her ass off. I was making about 130k / year. She was making about 60k / year. Then we not only moved from the US to Poland (where live is just so much cheaper). But I also started making about 330k / year. All the willingness to work evaporated on her part :-) Instead we have another kid. She stopped tal…
My anecdata is quite opposite. Women having remorse for leaving children in child care, but they can't stand staying at home. They feel lonely.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#43We definitely felt this. My wife ended up quitting her job when we had our first because all of the child care options we investigated were going to require basically her entire after-tax income to support. It only made sense if she was planning to grow her career and just ride out the daycare for 5 years until the kid went to school, but even then it's contingent on not having another kid during that time. At the en…
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's necessarily woman-specific. I'm a guy, and if I could stay at home all day and spend time with my kids, I would too. Certainly, I would if my wife was making 330k/year :D
Yes, but also it's not like having maternal instinct wouldn't make this decision easier for you. And keep in mind, statistics say than one of the divorce factors is husband making less than wife. From her perspective: this isn't sexy at all.
Just anecdotally, women seem to be interested in men who excel in some area, not just in salary. Successful musician's, artists, scientists, etc all do pretty well, even if they aren't top earners.
I guess what I'm cautioning against is reading your "studies" as suggesting that women don't find lower earners "sexy." Much simpler economic circumstances could plausibly explain the higher rate of divorce.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#45It doesn't have to be this way. Québec has had subsidized daycare for almost 25 years, and the program literally pays for itself (and more!) via increased income taxes from parents that would have otherwise chosen to stay at home. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/12/affordable-daycare-su... > In Montreal, Quebec’s largest city, a day of child care cost on average $10 in 2016 > Quebec’s program, which introduced lo…
I am generally not one to rail against the government running efficient programs for general welfare, I support single payer healthcare in the US and many progressive policies. I do however think we need to consider the line where anything you buy has the government involved in re-distributing resources to make it cheaper for people with less money.
Ultimately, it might be good to allow economic forces to produce an economy again where single income households can afford to raise children, regardless of the gender of the parent who is earning an income. More work doesn't always mean societies or families ended up better off, parents spending time raising kids should not be seen as just sunken cost because we could have gotten tax money out of them.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's necessarily woman-specific. I'm a guy, and if I could stay at home all day and spend time with my kids, I would too. Certainly, I would if my wife was making 330k/year :D
Yes, but also it's not like having maternal instinct wouldn't make this decision easier for you. And keep in mind, statistics say than one of the divorce factors is husband making less than wife. From her perspective: this isn't sexy at all.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#47The thing with female workforce participation: isn't it just symptom of the society getting poorer. My wife worked her ass off. I was making about 130k / year. She was making about 60k / year. Then we not only moved from the US to Poland (where live is just so much cheaper). But I also started making about 330k / year. All the willingness to work evaporated on her part :-) Instead we have another kid. She stopped tal…
There was never a time anywhere in the history of the world where one working man could work a low-skilled laborer's job and comfortably provide for a family of four.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#48This may be somewhat off-topic, but I'm often surprised that leftist policies like the article advocates are often proposed at a national level? Why is this? Why not propose a state-sponsored child-care system in a leftist state - California, Washington, Massachusetts, etc. I'm not trying to start a war here, simply genuinely interested why people on the left push national social programs versus propose them in very…
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#49Women's introduction to the workforce was the right thing to happen but it fundamentally hurt labor and the "middle class". You can't double the supply without changing anything in the system and inflationary effects of dual income are ridiculous.
This doesn't make economic sense.... 'doubling supply' is what economic growth is.... producing more should be balanced out with people consuming more, which is what a healthy economy does. This is like arguing that the invention of the assembly line caused inflation because you could produce too much. You contradict yourself by saying 'double supply' and 'inflationary effects'... increasing supply of a commodity (in…
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's necessarily woman-specific. I'm a guy, and if I could stay at home all day and spend time with my kids, I would too. Certainly, I would if my wife was making 330k/year :D
wait, are you saying that staying at home with the kids is not work?! It is arguably a harder job than most white collar jobs out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWcJZ210AaM