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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

#51

Post by luckylion »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #34
luckylion wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many (most I assume?) choose when to have or try to have children. Might sound a bit too cynical for this site, but plenty of people decided to get a dog in 2020. Why shouldn't they choose to have a baby for the same reasons?

I did not opine on whether or not people should have had a baby or for what reasons.

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that you had, rather I was suggesting that they did choose to have a baby because it filled a void that was created by lockdowns (and that others filled by getting a dog).

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

#52

Post by jeffbee »

OK let's put "boom" in perspective. The 2021 ACS estimate puts the under-5-year age cohort as the smallest cohort, smaller even than my pathetically sparse mid-gen-x age bracket. So whatever boom is going on must have happened post-2021, which isn't consistent with the article, or was not large enough to offset the overall down trend.

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

#53

Post by bombcar »

stingraycharles wrote: post #37
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 not, and it may be my lack of understanding, but I don’t think taking care of babies during a meeting is a good thing. Unless you and I have very different types of meetings, the ones I have are usually short and focused and I would be very annoyed if someone was constantly interrupted or distracted (just like I would be if someone is constantly checking their phone).

You are very lucky and privileged to have such useful focused meetings.

The vast majority of meetings are useless and unproductive, and if half the people on the call are muted the entire time nobody would ever notice.

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

#54

Post by UncleOxidant »

BWStearns wrote: post #41
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?

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.

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

#55

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

BWStearns wrote: post #41
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?

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 job related costs. And as a tradeoff you get to have the stress of the job plus the joy of having someone else raise your kids. It just doesn't make sense.

Also, importantly, your Earned Income Tax Credit will be reduced if you make more money (not 1-1, but just another reason why working in a low paying job doesn't really make sense if you have children and a spouse/partner that can support your family).

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

#56

Post by dleslie »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #22
seydor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I cannot imagine that, babies and toddlers require attention frequently and randomly. Unless you have zero meetings, loose deadlines, and very asynchronous contact with the rest of the business, it would be a very difficult balance. Might work for first 6 months when all they do is sleep, eat, and lay around, but as soon as they are moving or aware that they can get things they want, predictability goes out the windo…

As a parent of, IMHO the first six months are when they need the most attention, not when they're the easiest. Infants desire constant affection, feeding, cleaning, and some never stop crying.

Once they can crawl it's off to the races. Basically anything can hold their attention for half an hour while you take a short meeting.

I've worked from home with two infants, then toddlers, and now kids. Infants were the hardest.

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

#57

Post by bombcar »

smeej wrote: post #28
lotsofpulp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only US source for data I could find was from 2011: https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/contraception/uninten... > In 2008, women reported that more than half of all pregnancies (51%) were unintended. By 2011, the percentage of unintended pregnancies declined to 45%. That is an improvement, but some groups still tend to have higher rates of unintended pregnancy. For example, 75% of pregnancies were unintended…

This depends a lot on the phrasing of the question, because there can be a big difference between "unplanned" and "undesired." When people actively want not to have children, they tend to be fastidious about using their contraceptives as intended, but they're less careful when they are less opposed to the idea. Even if someone gets pregnant earlier than they had actually "planned," many are quickly delighted after th…

Yeah, the questions have to be carefully designed to avoid questioner's bias, and to get at the root of what you're trying to determine.

There's a vast range from "we cannot have children at all" to "we are intentionally doing every single thing possible to conceive" and many people end up in the "eh if it happens it happens" middle somewhere.

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

#58

Post by mym1990 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #22
seydor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I cannot imagine that, babies and toddlers require attention frequently and randomly. Unless you have zero meetings, loose deadlines, and very asynchronous contact with the rest of the business, it would be a very difficult balance. Might work for first 6 months when all they do is sleep, eat, and lay around, but as soon as they are moving or aware that they can get things they want, predictability goes out the windo…

Eh, I took a 1:1 with my manager and he was holding his newborn right there. Its a slightly different world of work now, I was just glad I wasn't in his position.

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

#59

Post by downrightmike »

nineplay wrote: post #23

I can understand that it's probably easier to track the numbers of children born to 'women' instead of 'parents', but my observation has been that remote work has resulted in a sea change as to what it means to be a full time working parent. My boss works long hours and now has 2 kids under the age of 4. Pre-Covid he would have been out of the house from about 7-7 and only able to have moments of interaction at the e…

>>If we're not careful the kids are going to be going back to class and correcting their teachers That's okay, just remind them to give some time for someone else to pick out the problem before they bring it up.

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

#60

Post by idontpost »

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.

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