Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by hirvi74 » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 12:33 AM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #299

tenpies wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite odd that these "civilized societies" then have to rely on importing the best and brightest young people from "uncivilized" societies to keep their "civilized society" from suffering a demographic collapse. Almost makes one think that they're not quite civilized, they just put economics above all and rely on exploiting other nations to prop the whole thing up.

That's Marxism in a nutshell - capitalism requires a slave labor class to prop it up. We're supposed to be entering an age of automation. But now that the yoke of labor may be lifted from our shoulders finally, all anybody can talk about is "Full Employment".

> We're supposed to be entering an age of automation

I like your usage of "supposed." I feel like I have been seeing "Automation will replace in " for the past 15 years or more.

I can't even get Siri to work 95% of the time let alone have her and her virtual brethren overtake society. I do not doubt it's possible one day, but assuming I am average, I have about 40 or so years left on this planet, and I doubt I will see it in that time.

I'm not trying to discredit the wonder innovations and milestones we have achieved so far, but it's the new "flying cars" to me.

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

#372

Post by refurb » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 12:44 AM UTC

planetsprite wrote: post #207

maxbond wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This seems pretty reductionist to me. Men can absolutely raise children. Husbands in heterosexual couples should absolutely be raising their children and not leaving the entire task of raising them to their wives. Gay men can also raise children. I don't think you meant to be disrespe…

People's role in society shouldn't be determined by their biology, but the manner in which their biology manifests in their life outcomes is determined by their biology.

That's just an odd statement since there are intrinsic differences in biology between the sexes. You can't ignore them. Heavy manual labor is typically a job for men because males have more body strength.

And until you can find a way for biological males to have a baby, biology is going to determine the role of childbearing.

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

#373

Post by refurb » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 12:45 AM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #201

black_knight wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In civilised societies, women still give birth, but after they are born both parents are given the possibility to stay at home with their child. This usually takes the form of the birth-giving woman staying at home for the first few months, while the child is dependent on frequent breastfeeding, after which the other parent stays at home with the child for a few months until they are ready to to start kindergarten ar…

This is one of those policies I believe is broadly popular with voters in both US political parties, but never gets implemented because capital has more say in our government than voters.

It's more like taxes would have to go up for the middle class to fund such support (see tax rates in Europe) and people don't want their taxes to go up.

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

#374

Post by dilap » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 12:47 AM UTC

danans wrote: post #350

dilap wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're breastfeeding, it's gotta be the woman. And ideally, you are breastfeeding. Beyond that, most women strongly want to be with their babies. There was a NYT article a few years back about the boom of internet baby monitors, and it was kind of heartbreaking -- a bunch of women sitting at their desks glued to their baby monitors wishing they could be with their babies. I think we've really fucked up as a societ…

> I think we've really fucked up as a society when "women can have kids and be with them" is considered strange or a luxury It has always been a luxury. Unless they were wealthy enough to hire domestic servants or happened to participate in the postwar economic boom in the West that reduced the intensity of household domestic labor via household appliances, women of the past also got limited time with their children.…

"Do no work and be with your kid" is probably a rarity, but the impression I have is that in traditional indigenous cultures you could do work around your home or village, in a rich social environment of other women and mothers, while being with your baby.

People living this way of life are not working themeslves to the bone; they spend lots of time just hanging out and socializing.

I think the gruling overwork that most of us experience is more a feature of fuedal and then industrial culture, than a natural state of existence.

But still we are in real terms actually super rich, so it should be possible to somehow rearrange things to get back to that ideal, I think.

(Of course there are deeper issues here too -- just having a mom sit at home all alone with her baby is actually not very good either. Really, you want mom and baby to be integrated into a meaningful, rich cultural environment. And I think it would be nice if kids were more integrated into normal life, in general.)

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

#375

Post by bombcar » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 12:56 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #271

bombcar wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many hours a week/day? And yes, it's likely subsidized; around here there's "free 4k" and some of the pre-4k daycares are subsidized in various ways.

9 hours a day, 7:30am till 4:30pm. It's a flat £200 a week.

So 40 lbs a day, or a bit over four lbs an hour. Could work out how much they can pay based on number of kids.

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

#376

Post by hirvi74 » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 1:09 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #55

BWStearns wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's apparently one big driver in the labor shortage. Childcare costs were so high that when everyone was home people realized the second job wasn't actually that useful and now there's one stay-at-home parent (seems weighted towards mothers[0]). [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/01/14/some-gender...

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…

> (which, these days, is around $15 in most major metros, regardless of what the actual law is)

Sorry to go off topic, but I cannot believe my state is still $7.25 an hour. There hasn't been a single increase in minimum wage since 2008.

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

#377

Post by namecheapTA » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 1:12 AM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #336

WalterBright wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happened to know beforehand that the car had been on the lot a while, and the dealer probably wanted to be rid of it. Unsold cars on the lot are burning cash, as they're there on borrowed money. BTW, he had to get the manager's signoff on the final price, so I'm sure he wasn't getting fired for it. A savvy manager isn't going to let a salesman underprice a car to sell to his buddy. You mention a lot of consideratio…

Unless there's value in it to me, I generally dress down for anything where I'm paying money. My thinking? If I'm polite and verbally confirm that I'm good for the amount and the salesperson treats me poorly? Not someone I'd want to do business with anyway. Actions >> appearance

I'm from California where ignoring someone for the way they dress doesn't really happen often. And honestly, any car salesman that's been in it for more than a month has seen a blue collar worker come buy a $80k diesel pickup or escalade for their wife.

What we do screen for a bit is basically time wasters. It is possible to be accidentally picked up in this net, and then say "they sure missed out, I bought a car at the next place". That's unfortunate for the salesperson sure, but you're ignoring the countless hours saved by quickly dismissing the true time wasters.

I sold cars and was very good at it (better than top 1%) and would sometimes get in a mood when I would ignore intuition for a few weeks and just do an amazing job with everyone. Doing an amazing job works well, and you can get people to buy a car who swear they stopped with ZERO intention of actually buying a car that month even, very often. But you almost never even get CLOSE to selling a car to someone you have a bad vibe about, even if you go all in.

If you're good at car sales, you have more people to follow up with and do a good job with than you have time. I sold 34 cars a month average over years. National average is 11. Eventually you have to trust your judgement to save yourself 10+ hours a week, even if once a month it costs you a sale.

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

#378

Post by hirvi74 » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 1:14 AM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #54

BWStearns wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's apparently one big driver in the labor shortage. Childcare costs were so high that when everyone was home people realized the second job wasn't actually that useful and now there's one stay-at-home parent (seems weighted towards mothers[0]). [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/01/14/some-gender...

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.

Think about the bank you could roll in if you opened a childcare facility. I understand it's not as simple as printing money as there are obvious risks, liabilities, etc.. I imagine it wouldn't be too expensive to get up and running or maintain compared to something like a restaurant.

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

#379

Post by yucky » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 1:17 AM UTC

alocasia-1 wrote: post #328

yucky wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>contraceptive access being removed or severely limited in many states Not being combative but as someone who isn't up to snuff on this subject can you provide some examples? I haven't seen examples of this so I'd like to read more.

Sure, In 2020 there was a SCOTUS decision allowing employers to refuse insurance coverage for contraception for their employees for "religious or moral" reasons, aka "we don't like it". https://www.npr.org/2020/07/08/889112788/the-supreme-court-a... At least twelve states have laws allowing institutions and healthcare professionals to simply refuse to provide contraception if they want. https://www.guttmacher.org/sta…

So those aren't examples of contraceptive access being removed, they're examples of the Supreme Court ruling that government can not force private insurers to cover specific things if they don't want.

It seems like the solution to that would be to pick a different insurance plan (Obamacare marketplace has no plans that restrict contraceptive coverage) or go through one of the hundreds of organizations like Planned Parenthood. Since any employee is free to pick an Obamacare plan by law, does that not ensure contraceptive coverage is always available?

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

#380

Post by rayiner » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 2:32 AM UTC

tsol wrote: post #370

rayiner wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s part of the story. The other part is that many women don’t want to be in the workforce. Among women with children under 18, the majority (50-45) would prefer a “homemaker role.” https://news.gallup.com/poll/267737/record-high-women-prefer... . Among women without a college degree, whether or not they have kids, it’s 44%. The pandemic also coincides with a few years of strong wage growth among working class hou…

>Among women with children under 18, the majority (50-45) would prefer a “homemaker role.” Weird, I never hear this. I never see discussions of about women wanting to be homemakers, especially as much as the opposite(women wanting to enter the workforce). I wonder if people with these opinions just find it more easily.

How many 30+ women do you know who don’t have a college degree?