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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

#131

Post by rajin444 »

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…

> women have stepped up for their families often to the detriment of their own careers

Forcing 2 household incomes was/is awful for a healthy society. Women are the only humans that can produce children and they have to do it during a relatively short time window - especially if we want to reproduce at replacement level. Raising children should be regarded as one of the most important things a woman can do because they’re the only ones that can do it.

I’m not sure how western society will continue if we view raising a child instead of having a career as “stepping up”. It’s certainly disrespectful to all the mothers of our future.

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

#132

Post by [deleted] »

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,…

[deleted]

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

#134

Post by newshorts »

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…

Genuinely wondering how anything beyond a 4:1 ratio is bad? My kids are in daycare in TX with well over a 4:1 ratio and seem like they are doing fine. What sorts of downsides are you referring to?

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

#135

Post by conductr »

vineyardmike wrote: post #109
UncleOxidant wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having kids I didn't realize how insane childcare costs had gotten. Someone posted an article to a local reddit that says people are pre-registering unborn children for childcare because there are so few slots available. Others responses indicated that it's running around $1500 to $2000/month for childcare. Add in housing costs and no wonder people are hesitant to have kids now.

> people are pre-registering unborn children for childcare because there are so few slots available. Shit I have to do this too? I’ve already started saving for the unreasonable cost of college, and the cost of childbirth, and the unreasonable cost of a large (enough) house in my metro. But now this?!

Tip of the iceberg. It was going on before Covid (where I live) and has only worsened with labor shortages and the fact day caregivers are in that band of labor that has inflated a lot in recent years. Also, daycares are hard to shop. If you send your kid to A, you likely will recommend A but you have no idea if B is better or worse. Staff and leadership tenure is the best correlation we found after having to change centers 4 times, you really don't want to have to go through that and it's tough on the kid too. Unfortunately, tenure is a weird metric with everyone changing jobs so much lately. Glad to be out of it but having them go on an academic calendar is a challenge too.

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

#136

Post by newshorts »

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?

We were paying $3k or higher per kid when we lived in the Bay Area.

Some people might be coming from a very different perspective on what constitutes a good price.

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

#137

Post by newshorts »

seydor wrote: post #21
bombcar wrote: post #11

I wonder what percentage was fueled by a dual income household being forced to single income and realizing that they could handle it well enough - and the non-working spouse deciding to not bother returning to the workforce?

Returning to the workforce does not mean returning to the office anymore. I can imagine mother-friendly remote work as a replacement/supplement to maternal/paternal leave

Remote work while doing childcare is something I would not wish on anyone.

Definitely not an upgrade in my experience

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

#138

Post by conductr »

mariojv wrote: post #80
UncleOxidant wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having kids I didn't realize how insane childcare costs had gotten. Someone posted an article to a local reddit that says people are pre-registering unborn children for childcare because there are so few slots available. Others responses indicated that it's running around $1500 to $2000/month for childcare. Add in housing costs and no wonder people are hesitant to have kids now.

Yes. Even in my relatively low cost of living city (San Antonio, TX) some friends of mine about to have a kid are having to get on a wait list before birth for something near them. I don't really understand why this price spiral occurred but it is so hard for parents nowadays.

I'm up in Dallas but probably directionally same as down in SA. As you know, basically nobody makes the legal minimum wage in Texas. The market is higher. Caregivers are usually near whatever that "effective minimum wage" is. They might get paid $1 an hour more than someone working at Chipotle or similar. Up here, this wage band has gone from ~$10-$12/hr to $15-$20/hr in a short period of time. This is core inflation.

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

#139

Post by b800h »

cutthegrass2 wrote: post #78
UncleOxidant wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having kids I didn't realize how insane childcare costs had gotten. Someone posted an article to a local reddit that says people are pre-registering unborn children for childcare because there are so few slots available. Others responses indicated that it's running around $1500 to $2000/month for childcare. Add in housing costs and no wonder people are hesitant to have kids now.

this is the same in the UK. Childcare costs are abhorrent. As a sample of one, I have twins at ~2yrs old. We pay ~£3,000 per month between private nanny and private nursery. It's literally 2x our mortgage cost.

We were in exactly the same position in the UK, putting our twins into nursery from a very early age so my wife and I could continue our careers. In retrospect we regret it somewhat, as it clearly affected them negatively. But it has been positive financially downstream. At least you know you can afford to privately school them later on to make up for it.

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

#140

Post by thatfrenchguy »

rajin444 wrote: post #131
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…

> women have stepped up for their families often to the detriment of their own careers Forcing 2 household incomes was/is awful for a healthy society. Women are the only humans that can produce children and they have to do it during a relatively short time window - especially if we want to reproduce at replacement level. Raising children should be regarded as one of the most important things a woman can do because th…

Or we could just make sure women have careers by having good social support?
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