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Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

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Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#121

Post by WalterBright »

Pasorrijer wrote: post #104
rs999gti wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wife was resigned to her career already being destroyed Really? She traded one job for another or does corporate life really matter that much to her?

A fairly significant amount of women have dedicated a decent amount of time, and money, academically, socially, etc. To their careers. Why, some women have even found working to be more enjoyable to being at home with kids. All joking aside, my wife is extremely worried about the impact her career will take from having children and her life goals include executive level leadership as part of her career. So you could,…

She can always start her own business. Don't need anyone's approval for that.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#122

Post by WalterBright »

sokoloff wrote: post #112
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this - that's been my general theory regarding a big portion of the labor shortage, but I didn't have much info to back this up. If you are a mother making near minimum wage (which, these days, is around $15 in most major metros, regardless of what the actual law is), and you need to be on the job site for 8 hours/day, you're barely if even covering the cost of child care plus commuting and other j…

My wife stayed home for several years after we realized that nearly every dollar of post-tax, post-401K cashflow her job brought in went right out to childcare (and she had a well above US median household income, PhD-required job in science). She was happier; kids seemed happy; she's now back in the workforce at a similar role and happy with that transition back as well. (We did lose N years of 401K max contribution…

The traditional role of grandparents is to care for the kids while the parents work.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#124

Post by sokoloff »

WalterBright wrote: post #122
sokoloff wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife stayed home for several years after we realized that nearly every dollar of post-tax, post-401K cashflow her job brought in went right out to childcare (and she had a well above US median household income, PhD-required job in science). She was happier; kids seemed happy; she's now back in the workforce at a similar role and happy with that transition back as well. (We did lose N years of 401K max contribution…

The traditional role of grandparents is to care for the kids while the parents work.

True. They're 700 miles away in our case, though...

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#125

Post by conductr »

lupire wrote: post #81
jmole wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legislation has nothing to do with it. Staffing ratio minimums are 6:1 in California, which means $2000/child can get you pretty far. The costs are the same as any other service industry - you have to pay more for higher quality teachers and you have to pay more for a location in more expensive areas.

You think $2000/month after taxes is a good price?

Nitpick but it's tax deductible in the end, but yes after taxes up front

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#126

Post by elforce002 »

questime wrote: post #29
SSJPython wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially in contrast to predictions by economists that the opposite would happen. Economists don't have sex, that's why they are economists.

Wouldn't that make them software engineers as well?

Haha. Throwing shade this early.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#127

Post by throwaway09223 »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #44
throwaway09223 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you not attended meetings with parents taking care of babies? I sure have. People do difficult things all the time. It's especially manageable if both parents are WFH.

I have attended meetings with people who had to remain muted the entire time due to their kid screaming at the top of their lungs constantly. Its not great

Well of course it's not ideal. Employees are people and people come with imperfections.

I've worked with employees distracted by kids. Distracted by substance abuse. Distracted by mental illness. Distracted by video games, TV, something on their phone, or even just a basic disinterest in the job.

When we talk about the job market as a whole -- such as in the article above -- it doesn't help to focus on a hyper-selective section of capable, skilled software engineers. The vast majority of workers are in a much messier, less efficient and effective environment.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#128

Post by matthewdgreen »

WalterBright wrote: post #122
sokoloff wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife stayed home for several years after we realized that nearly every dollar of post-tax, post-401K cashflow her job brought in went right out to childcare (and she had a well above US median household income, PhD-required job in science). She was happier; kids seemed happy; she's now back in the workforce at a similar role and happy with that transition back as well. (We did lose N years of 401K max contribution…

The traditional role of grandparents is to care for the kids while the parents work.

This assumes that your optimal employer exists in the same location as your parents. Unfortunately that is not always the case, at least before WFH.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#129

Post by gambiting »

Analemma_ wrote: post #111
ch4s3 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah its really insane. The child care space has been legislated into un-affordability. Between licensing requirements, staffing ratios, building codes, and a litany of other requirements its a service that can basically only be provided to upper middle class families if not HEAVILY subsidized.

It’s genuinely not legislation. Labor is expensive, which combined with the reality that anything beyond a 4:1 child-caretaker ratio is pretty bad for children pretty much guarantees that child care can never be cheap in a rich country with rich country labor costs. EDIT: I should've said "infants" and not "children" here, where the necessity of a 4:1 ratio really applies. As children get older this ratio can get hig…

UK is as expensive as it gets, but full time nursery(5 days a week) is "only" £800 a month for us. American costs seem to be completely absurd, despite much worse employment protections and benefits.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#130

Post by poulsbohemian »

tkk23 wrote: post #117
poulsbohemian wrote: post #72

It's election season and I've been out talking to voters, who share their life stories... what I would say is that there are many women who are choosing WFH because they either can't afford or can't find day care, which may lead to deciding that hey, they might as well have another baby if they are now committed to this employment model. I've spoken to several women who were over-qualified for the jobs they had taken…

>who were over-qualified for the jobs they had taken to WFH What's missing to link those women to matching jobs? There must also be many new mothers who would like to work but who haven't found a WFH job.

In one memorable account, I spoke to a scientist working in some kind of environmental management role - where her husband ended up taking the job she would have otherwise by rank and seniority and she took a lesser role on the team so that she could stay home, IE: he did the field work, she did the office stuff. They had two kids and couldn't find care any longer for the kids as it was a supply-side issue.

There's been this impression out there that Millenials (who are at child-bearing age now) are less likely to have children. It would be interesting to research if they are just sort of "late bloomers" who perhaps by virtue of WFH or maybe other TBD factors have decided it's now time to start a family.

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