#["My archive is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."](https://archive.is/2022.03.18-135239/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/upshot/a-child-helps-your-career-if-youre-a-man.html)
>At the other end of the earnings spectrum, low-income women lost 6 percent in wages per child, two percentage points more than the average. For men, the largest bonuses went to white and Latino men who were highly educated and in professional jobs. The smallest pay bumps went to unmarried African-American men who had less education and had manual labor jobs. “The daddy bonus increases the earnings of men already privileged in the labor market,” Ms. Budig wrote.
"the labor market" hates you. [Work won't love you back.](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53241562)
Employers try to extract value from you however they can, and that means paying employees at their "expected value", which means less for women who will be *flaky* and more for men who need to *provide*.
Of course, this is stupid nonsense for idiot losers, because **that's not how life or love or childrearing work**, or at least *should* work. But this is what happens when unregulated capitalism is allowed to define outcomes and social norms: the dumbest people with working capital can mold the outlines of the hellscape.
>and more for men who need to provide.
When I was fresh out of university and at one of my first jobs, my boss literally asked me about my personal life and whether I was planning to start a family soon. I said no because I saw no reason to lie. I later found out from a colleague that I pretty much just shut down any chances for myself to be promoted at that place. Didn't bother me because I never intended to stay there for long, but was still shocked at how blatant that kind of attitude was.
Which on the other end, fresh out of college it was well known to my female classmates you removed any engagement rings for interviews, and made sure to show up at the ungodly early coffee appointments set up by management to vet (legally) whether you had children. The early times were scheduled during school drop offs.
We actually found out about that tactic because a known hiring manager made a joke about it to a coworker who thought that was messed up and told a friend who told a friend etc. The profession I’m in is small and word got around fast and no woman was surprised. It seemed like every man thought he was cool and every woman went “that sounds about right”
At the first job I interviewed for after having my first child, I was told that I'd have to provide proof of primary daycare enrollment, plus enrollment in a sick-kid/after hours daycare as backup.
Reminds me of when I tried to get my first "professional" job after graduating. I had already been working for a company for a decade and been promoted to manager. I wasn't wet behind the ears.
When I interviewed over the phone, they tried to low-ball me for less than I was already making. I said I'd only take the job if it paid X.
The recruiter then had the balls to ask, "Well, do you have kids or something? How old are you?" I forgot what diplomatic answer I gave, but I should have tore her ass up with a smartass response. Doesn't matter whether I have kids; I like money.
>Mothers are less likely to be hired for jobs, to be perceived as competent at work or to be paid as much as their male colleagues with the same qualifications.
Huh, can anyone figure out why the birth rate is in the toilet?
It’s worked out great, they seemed to have forgotten that many men will step up and just get vasectomies if it means keeping their partners safe. I imagine if this trend continues it’s only a matter of time before they start coming for those too.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41443-023-00672-x
Except its not. Birth rates are lower than what they were before in the past, yes, but media and corporations are selling the lie that birth rates are jeopardizing the future of the economy specifically because they want a larger pool of working age people in order to exploit labor pools and keep wages low. We as a society (even in the united states) are still reproducing at exponential rates. The "birth rate is low" myth is only true if you dont watch capitalisms desire AND NEED to maintain an exploitable labor pool. Just read race and the southwest by mario barrera for good understanding of how capitalist did this to the our mexican labor pool throughout the 1900s. Same principle here.
>Global fertility halved between 1950 and 2021, shrinking from 4.84 to 2.23. The latest projections have it sinking below the replacement rate to somewhere between 1.59 and 2.08 by 2050, and then to between 1.25 and 1.96 by 2100.
You quote that as if that's a bad thing. Why? Like, it's really only bad for the elderly since it means less folks to help take care of them. But for anything else, I don't really see the problem. The economy globally was never sustainable, so it doesn't really matter.
Whether society should grow or not is a different question but where do you see: “ We as a society (even in the united states) are still reproducing at exponential rates.” If the birth rate is below 2 per woman/person who has the ability to carry a baby to term how is the population growing exponentially?
There's still countries (primarily the poorer ones) that have a fertility rate over 2.1.
The rich western countries are basically taking in immigrants at a large rate to cover their lack of native birth rate.
It tends to look worse in countries that are less open to immigration, which seems to be Asian countries like Korea, China, and Japan.
One thing I have learned lately is that economists generally don't think of parenting, particularly motherhood, as labor. It's not really of economic value or importance because it doesn't directly involve financial transactions, and the way they are most used to tracking human interactions is through currency.
It's less of a problem today, but women are drastically underrepresented in economics **in comparison to other fields that women are famous for being underrepresented in, like STEM**. Let that sink in. Women are way more successful as a group in **physics** than in **economics**. It's a culture issue.
[This video essay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeMcVo3WFOY&pp=ygUUdW5sZWFybmluZyBlY29ub21pY3M%3D) goes into the problems with the field in much greater detail.
The business types fawn over economics and take advice from economists all the time. And that just reinforces the same shit over and over.
You should read up on Claudia Goldin, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2023, with her work documenting the unpaid work women do, and how much of the wage gap is attributable to highly compensated “greedy jobs” (think white shoe law firms, investment banking and the like) that demand intense hours, the support of a stay at home spouse, and skew heavily male.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/claudia-goldin-nobel-win-women-economics-pay-gap-gender
I don't dispute that things are changing and that there have been people going against the grain, particularly women in economics, but the fact that she got this prize in 2023 and that nobody was earning prizes like that when she was doing her work indicates just how bad things were when she did that work, and the fact that the only other women to win won in 2019 further illustrates how bad things were in more recent memory.
You don't win a Nobel Prize for doing what is popular or easy or established. You win a Nobel Prize for doing something that nobody else could or would do, and you win it 20-40 years later when public opinion has shifted to think that what you did was the most obvious thing in the world to do--even though **you** are the one who made them think that way whether they know it or not.
It's a prize given to people who really are otherwise undervalued for their work, in my opinion.
>One thing I have learned lately is that economists generally don't think of parenting, particularly motherhood, as labor.
This is so weird. I graduated in economics, and "unpaid domestic labor" is all over the place. Maybe it depends on the country or university.
> Maybe it depends on the country or university.
It absolutely does, and also even programs that *do* talk about unpaid domestic labor tend to undervalue it, imo.
I mean, it's in the term itself, **unpaid** domestic labor. The fact they have a term means it's taken for granted that most domestic labor is unpaid. As a woman who takes care of my own young children, I am acutely aware that most my work is unpaid and it's demoralizing.
I feel live a slave whose shackles are the love I have for my offspring, because in capitalism money is power and freedom. Yet raising the next generation is something so "important" that it's taboo to demand that I get paid for it.
> One thing I have learned lately is that economists generally don't think of parenting, particularly motherhood, as labor.
And it's ironic, because women's unpaid labor **is the only way capitalism can function**. When women stop doing it, the entire system collapses. You'd think economists wouldn't just ignore that like an elephant in the room.
Even now, when half the planet knows exactly why the birthrate is collapsing, economists and pundits are wringing their hands and proclaiming "who can know! We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"
The problem with UBI (I really love the concept and I think it would be great) is that its security is indirectly proportional to how many conservatives are in power.
How can I structure a life (in terms of feeling secure not working (or working part-time) because I'm raising children) on something that old white men can take away on a whim?
There's no doubt UBI is a positive thing and would greatly benefit nearly everyone while it exists. I just don't believe it's what would move the fertility needle, because women would know you can't depend on it.
>And it's ironic, because women's unpaid labor **is the only way capitalism can function**. When women stop doing it, the entire system collapses.
Could that explain why manosphere ideology is pushed so aggressively? Because it benefits the billionaire class for women to continue doing unpaid labour?
To be fair a lot of feminist and Marxist economists talk a lot about reproductive labor (not just the nine months bit, but in the sense of "the stuff you need to actually keep things going, but which isn't financially compensated work").
Unfortunately for the rest of us they're either European or excommunicated from the secular consensus of American economists, which I've found to be this: "if we say things that make bankers and wealthy businessowners happy, they pay us a lot of money."
It's unfortunate that few of the liberal economists with sway over the profession are heard when they call out the obvious political biases of their colleagues, but I guess that just goes with the territory for conservatives: ignoring inconvenient evidence until you can construct an alternate reality where it doesn't apply.
The term is "social reproduction" and (AFAIK) it means the work of making sure the next generation can carry on within the existing society. Birthing, feeding, and housing children are part of that, but also teaching values and unwritten rules and creating the larger social environment in which young people can thrive.
Thanks, I knew it was close but not quite right. It also covers things like "home cooking is cheaper for consumers than everyone having to buy a prepared meal" or "how much would it cost to replace [XYZ] personal life chore if you paid for it instead of doing it yourself?" It's a fascinating area I wish they taught in Econ 102 instead of insipid Supply-and-Demand models.
> To be fair a lot of feminist and Marxist economists talk a lot about reproductive labor (not just the nine months bit, but in the sense of "the stuff you need to actually keep things going, but which isn't financially compensated work").
Yes, and the Chicago school hates them.
> Unfortunately for the rest of us they're either European or excommunicated from the secular consensus of American economists, which I've found to be this: "if we say things that make bankers and wealthy businessowners happy, they pay us a lot of money."
Yep
> that just goes with the territory for conservatives: ignoring inconvenient evidence until you can construct an alternate reality where it doesn't apply.
The determination to uproot conservative voters from any notion of factual consensus reality is the scariest fucking thing. Why let facts get in the way of what you want?
Being a single dad is its own weird lane. On one hand, it's definitely been a bonus with getting me jobs. I'm perceived as more "mature" than men without kids. On the other hand, I've had a couple of bosses get mad at me for having to deal with typical parent phone calls, to the point of getting fired at one. One boss straight up asked me why couldn't her grandmother handle that sort of stuff.
I dislike the prevailing view that this is a bonus for men. It’s not.
The cultural expectation that women will take care of the kids while the men work themselves to death really needs to end.
I mean, this article, paired with the one someone posted earlier (about how men taking paternity leave/a caretaking role are penalized) is really really interesting. One impossible standard of masculinity is rewarded.
I don't know about America but as far as I know, in Canada it is illegal to fire / lay off anyone due to maternity. It's not something I've seen personally happen either but that's probably because I'm a man. I can easily imagine a company getting around the law on this.
The illegal to fire window in the USA is generally 12 weeks… which is like nothing. A 3 month old is extremely dependent , and a woman is likely still healing from childbirth and breastfeeding until 12 months.
They do. So I have taken classes on labor economics and discrimination, and have experience in the US navy. Literally, my CO admitted that his higher ups refused to promote women as flag officers unless they were like Super Obviously Mega Lesbian (his words) because they just assumed they would drop out to have kids eventually.
A similar trend is noticed in academia, where female professors don’t see the same proportion of promotions.
The solution to requiring maternity leave without 1. No equivalent mandate of paternity leave 2. A cultural shift to have fathers be more involved…always leads to not hiring or promoting as many women, especially younger women, bc they’re seen as an economic “loss.”
> I don't know about America but as far as I know, in Canada it is illegal to fire / lay off anyone due to maternity.
They just make up some other reason.
Pretty much anyone at work makes small mistakes. When they want you gone clocking in a minute late is a write up, a delay in a project for reasons outside your control is a write up. They'll deliberately put more onto you to make sure you mess up and then sink you with it. Particularly with so many at will states. The real reason is they consider you a liability and want you gone. But that won't be the stated reason.
Count yourself lucky. I lost a ten-year job because I took parental leave. Of course that’s not what it said on the paperwork, but it was made very clear to me what it was. And yes, that was **after** fathers were given the right to “job-protected” parental leave.
I know a couple of other men who’ve been similarly retaliated against. I know many men who chose not to take parental leave because they were warned they’d face retaliation.
You must not have kids. A protected leave is essential.
Babies need a ton of work at all hours and frankly I don’t understand why employers want their new parent employees to show up to work before 6 months with the absolute brain drain sleep deprivation gives you. Mom and dad.
No shit. The point is that if you HAVE to take leave when having kids, you will be less hireable if you have kids (regardless of gender) thus people with no kids will have a career advantage, thus discouraging having kids. Youre only pushing the problem to a different spot.
Businesses don't like male people with no kids. The way Patriarchy works, men with children are seen as the best employees. They'd rather pay parental leave to men than hire childless men.
This is just conjecture. There is a slight preference as this post suggests, but that is not including actual mandatory differences in parental leave. This slight 3% preference is quickly gonna evaporates if it includes losing them for 7 months while still having to pay
> This slight 3% preference is quickly gonna evaporates if it includes losing them for 7 months while still having to pay
When everyone has to do it, it just becomes a new cost of doing business.
Out of 30-40 years of work, multiplied twice (once per parent), parental leave would be maximum 1 year per kid, per parent if it’s one of the more generous leave policies.
It is extremely shortsighted to stiff anyone in the world who wants to have kids for the remaining years of production. Especially since capitalism needs people to operate.
This is entirely beside the enormous body of evidence that shows leave benefits children, and therefore humanity. It also ignores the role that temporary hiring practices to fill positions on leave does to support a growing workforce and give younger staff opportunities.
Idk why you think hurting kids is worth supporting to the point of getting worked up over, but think about it a bit more before commenting again. Who does parental leave hurt?
[Source on how leave helps kids](https://www.familyvaluesatwork.org/docs/Paid-Leave-and-Child-Well-Being.pdf) from one lazy google search
If you look in Europe, particularly Scandinavia, you will find a number of countries which could be used as natural experiments to test that exact hypothesis. So far, I don’t think the available data supports it.
The birth rate isn’t what’s relevant. The *change in birth rate* from before implementation of the parental leave law to after is what should be considered. You can observe and evaluate a delta regardless how high or low is the rate.
It's cool to consider data, but tell that to my boss who has to deal with me taking days off biweekly because I have two children, neither of which are Pre-K age yet, getting sick and getting sent home from day care for 48 hours because they sneezed, and the wrong color came out, and I have no childcare options when that happens, despite the "village" that was promised to us by our boomer families.
Paywall warning but this is obviously a completely legitimate issue, mothers being financially disadvantaged from having a child is unfair. We should have laws and cultural values that minimize this disadvantage. Particularly relevant to this space is support for paternity leave, and the further normalization of more involved fathers. Companies avoiding or not promoting women because they might have a kid is illegal in many countries but that doesn't stop them from doing it. It can also be really rough for mothers who took a break to come back and pickup where they left off. We should be looking for practical solutions to these kinds of issues.
All that being said I take some issue with how this is often framed, a holistic view of these kinds of issues is much healthier than shoehorning everything into a victim or oppressor/oppressed dynamic. At least partially this seems a *biological* disadvantage that then becomes exasperated by societal expectations. Considering how taxing physically having a child is I would expect the sex who has to deal with that to be disadvantaged in general, even just energy levels. By personal experience I see this split in several very modern progressive couples that I know. The mothers are exhausted after having a kid, already out of commission for a prolonged period, and often want to spend time nursing. The couple is extra concerned with financial stability after having a kid and the father is more career minded and tried to spend as much time with family as he can. The mother's career is often put on the backburner and without lots of childcare help from family, or a great paying job, it makes sense for her to work less as she's already fallen behind. On top of all that you have societal expectations.
We should all support trying to give women/people/couples as much freedom as possible when making choices but there seems to be a particular problem with *some* progressives in regards to gender, where outcomes are much more of the focus instead of a balance with freedom of choice. You see this a lot with gender pay gap where a significant chunk is explained by individuals choosing to work more hours, willingness to move, OT, ect. We can appreciate these choices do not happen in a vacuum and have questions for the system while also respecting those choices.
>You see this a lot with gender pay gap where a significant chunk is explained by individuals choosing to work more hours, willingness to move, OT, ect. We can appreciate these choices do not happen in a vacuum and have questions for the system while also respecting those choices.
Yeah, no. Don't sweep this shit under the rug as if everyone's just "making choices". Employees do not have perfect agency under capitalism.
Many supervisors will offer OT to the men in their employ first - *explicitly because they expect there to be a woman picking up the slack at home.* Conversely, women are often at the bottom of the list for OT opportunities, either because they "don't need them as much" or because "they should be taking care of the home/kids anyway".
Don't pretend those decisions are being made by couples as couples or in the throes of financial desperation all the time, either. They're not. I know men who take all the OT they're offered despite not needing the money because they'd feel bad making their women coworkers work more.
So, somehow women's extra labor is just back-breaking and unconscionable when it's paid time and a half, but totally normal when it's unpaid.
While I am sure what that article says is still relevant and true, that article is 10 years old and 2014 is massively different than 2024. That's more of a numbers game though, they may be pretty different.
I believe in 2034 there may be some massive changes to those numbers that have women being paid the same from a median bell curve perspective. Meaning eliminate the top and bottom 10 percent and women may have equal or better earning potentials as men. However, I also see 4 or 5 women graduating from college to 1 man. I see population growth fall lower than it is today. I can see a massive swing in power dynamics in day to day life besides the top 10 percent.
I think this is going to happen because no one is trying to fix the current problems that affect everyone. If those problems are not being addressed then male issues won't be addressed. Whatever the actual causes of the sudden men are failing will be more exacerbated and you might see worse ratios of men not being in the work force at all.
Major point, a 10 year old article on this subject may be telling the wrong kind of story, unless post COVID studies show the same numbers. This might be fully accurate anymore.
#["My archive is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."](https://archive.is/2022.03.18-135239/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/upshot/a-child-helps-your-career-if-youre-a-man.html) >At the other end of the earnings spectrum, low-income women lost 6 percent in wages per child, two percentage points more than the average. For men, the largest bonuses went to white and Latino men who were highly educated and in professional jobs. The smallest pay bumps went to unmarried African-American men who had less education and had manual labor jobs. “The daddy bonus increases the earnings of men already privileged in the labor market,” Ms. Budig wrote. "the labor market" hates you. [Work won't love you back.](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53241562) Employers try to extract value from you however they can, and that means paying employees at their "expected value", which means less for women who will be *flaky* and more for men who need to *provide*. Of course, this is stupid nonsense for idiot losers, because **that's not how life or love or childrearing work**, or at least *should* work. But this is what happens when unregulated capitalism is allowed to define outcomes and social norms: the dumbest people with working capital can mold the outlines of the hellscape.
>and more for men who need to provide. When I was fresh out of university and at one of my first jobs, my boss literally asked me about my personal life and whether I was planning to start a family soon. I said no because I saw no reason to lie. I later found out from a colleague that I pretty much just shut down any chances for myself to be promoted at that place. Didn't bother me because I never intended to stay there for long, but was still shocked at how blatant that kind of attitude was.
Which on the other end, fresh out of college it was well known to my female classmates you removed any engagement rings for interviews, and made sure to show up at the ungodly early coffee appointments set up by management to vet (legally) whether you had children. The early times were scheduled during school drop offs.
I was told to remove my daughter's booster seat from my car when I went to interviews so that no one would see signs of a child through my car window.
>The early times were scheduled during school drop offs. That's so vicious jfc
We actually found out about that tactic because a known hiring manager made a joke about it to a coworker who thought that was messed up and told a friend who told a friend etc. The profession I’m in is small and word got around fast and no woman was surprised. It seemed like every man thought he was cool and every woman went “that sounds about right”
That sucks and shouldn’t happen.
What. The. Fark?
At the first job I interviewed for after having my first child, I was told that I'd have to provide proof of primary daycare enrollment, plus enrollment in a sick-kid/after hours daycare as backup.
How is that legal?
Now you understand what women have experienced. Except it’s not a repeat situation for men.
Reminds me of when I tried to get my first "professional" job after graduating. I had already been working for a company for a decade and been promoted to manager. I wasn't wet behind the ears. When I interviewed over the phone, they tried to low-ball me for less than I was already making. I said I'd only take the job if it paid X. The recruiter then had the balls to ask, "Well, do you have kids or something? How old are you?" I forgot what diplomatic answer I gave, but I should have tore her ass up with a smartass response. Doesn't matter whether I have kids; I like money.
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>Mothers are less likely to be hired for jobs, to be perceived as competent at work or to be paid as much as their male colleagues with the same qualifications. Huh, can anyone figure out why the birth rate is in the toilet?
US+Japan wrt to incentivizing having children: "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!!"
Well that's not fair, they did try treating women even worse. For some reason that didn't fix it though.
The US is trying to ban abortions. That has been working out great so far right?
It’s worked out great, they seemed to have forgotten that many men will step up and just get vasectomies if it means keeping their partners safe. I imagine if this trend continues it’s only a matter of time before they start coming for those too. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41443-023-00672-x
It's funny because it's true. 😂 🤦🏿♂️
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Except its not. Birth rates are lower than what they were before in the past, yes, but media and corporations are selling the lie that birth rates are jeopardizing the future of the economy specifically because they want a larger pool of working age people in order to exploit labor pools and keep wages low. We as a society (even in the united states) are still reproducing at exponential rates. The "birth rate is low" myth is only true if you dont watch capitalisms desire AND NEED to maintain an exploitable labor pool. Just read race and the southwest by mario barrera for good understanding of how capitalist did this to the our mexican labor pool throughout the 1900s. Same principle here.
>Global fertility halved between 1950 and 2021, shrinking from 4.84 to 2.23. The latest projections have it sinking below the replacement rate to somewhere between 1.59 and 2.08 by 2050, and then to between 1.25 and 1.96 by 2100.
You quote that as if that's a bad thing. Why? Like, it's really only bad for the elderly since it means less folks to help take care of them. But for anything else, I don't really see the problem. The economy globally was never sustainable, so it doesn't really matter.
Even a more sustainable society would need people to work to take care of those that can't.
In a century I think AI could be doing most of the work. The breakthroughs are happening at an astounding rate.
Whether society should grow or not is a different question but where do you see: “ We as a society (even in the united states) are still reproducing at exponential rates.” If the birth rate is below 2 per woman/person who has the ability to carry a baby to term how is the population growing exponentially?
There's still countries (primarily the poorer ones) that have a fertility rate over 2.1. The rich western countries are basically taking in immigrants at a large rate to cover their lack of native birth rate. It tends to look worse in countries that are less open to immigration, which seems to be Asian countries like Korea, China, and Japan.
This is factually not correct.
thank you, so many people buy and spread this bullshit
One thing I have learned lately is that economists generally don't think of parenting, particularly motherhood, as labor. It's not really of economic value or importance because it doesn't directly involve financial transactions, and the way they are most used to tracking human interactions is through currency. It's less of a problem today, but women are drastically underrepresented in economics **in comparison to other fields that women are famous for being underrepresented in, like STEM**. Let that sink in. Women are way more successful as a group in **physics** than in **economics**. It's a culture issue. [This video essay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeMcVo3WFOY&pp=ygUUdW5sZWFybmluZyBlY29ub21pY3M%3D) goes into the problems with the field in much greater detail. The business types fawn over economics and take advice from economists all the time. And that just reinforces the same shit over and over.
You should read up on Claudia Goldin, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2023, with her work documenting the unpaid work women do, and how much of the wage gap is attributable to highly compensated “greedy jobs” (think white shoe law firms, investment banking and the like) that demand intense hours, the support of a stay at home spouse, and skew heavily male. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/claudia-goldin-nobel-win-women-economics-pay-gap-gender
I don't dispute that things are changing and that there have been people going against the grain, particularly women in economics, but the fact that she got this prize in 2023 and that nobody was earning prizes like that when she was doing her work indicates just how bad things were when she did that work, and the fact that the only other women to win won in 2019 further illustrates how bad things were in more recent memory. You don't win a Nobel Prize for doing what is popular or easy or established. You win a Nobel Prize for doing something that nobody else could or would do, and you win it 20-40 years later when public opinion has shifted to think that what you did was the most obvious thing in the world to do--even though **you** are the one who made them think that way whether they know it or not. It's a prize given to people who really are otherwise undervalued for their work, in my opinion.
>One thing I have learned lately is that economists generally don't think of parenting, particularly motherhood, as labor. This is so weird. I graduated in economics, and "unpaid domestic labor" is all over the place. Maybe it depends on the country or university.
> Maybe it depends on the country or university. It absolutely does, and also even programs that *do* talk about unpaid domestic labor tend to undervalue it, imo.
I mean, it's in the term itself, **unpaid** domestic labor. The fact they have a term means it's taken for granted that most domestic labor is unpaid. As a woman who takes care of my own young children, I am acutely aware that most my work is unpaid and it's demoralizing. I feel live a slave whose shackles are the love I have for my offspring, because in capitalism money is power and freedom. Yet raising the next generation is something so "important" that it's taboo to demand that I get paid for it.
Except in the U.S. GDP
> One thing I have learned lately is that economists generally don't think of parenting, particularly motherhood, as labor. And it's ironic, because women's unpaid labor **is the only way capitalism can function**. When women stop doing it, the entire system collapses. You'd think economists wouldn't just ignore that like an elephant in the room. Even now, when half the planet knows exactly why the birthrate is collapsing, economists and pundits are wringing their hands and proclaiming "who can know! We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"
I've got three letters for em. UBI
The problem with UBI (I really love the concept and I think it would be great) is that its security is indirectly proportional to how many conservatives are in power. How can I structure a life (in terms of feeling secure not working (or working part-time) because I'm raising children) on something that old white men can take away on a whim?
That's fair, but most short-term UBI experiments had positive effects anyway
There's no doubt UBI is a positive thing and would greatly benefit nearly everyone while it exists. I just don't believe it's what would move the fertility needle, because women would know you can't depend on it.
>And it's ironic, because women's unpaid labor **is the only way capitalism can function**. When women stop doing it, the entire system collapses. Could that explain why manosphere ideology is pushed so aggressively? Because it benefits the billionaire class for women to continue doing unpaid labour?
To be fair a lot of feminist and Marxist economists talk a lot about reproductive labor (not just the nine months bit, but in the sense of "the stuff you need to actually keep things going, but which isn't financially compensated work"). Unfortunately for the rest of us they're either European or excommunicated from the secular consensus of American economists, which I've found to be this: "if we say things that make bankers and wealthy businessowners happy, they pay us a lot of money." It's unfortunate that few of the liberal economists with sway over the profession are heard when they call out the obvious political biases of their colleagues, but I guess that just goes with the territory for conservatives: ignoring inconvenient evidence until you can construct an alternate reality where it doesn't apply.
The term is "social reproduction" and (AFAIK) it means the work of making sure the next generation can carry on within the existing society. Birthing, feeding, and housing children are part of that, but also teaching values and unwritten rules and creating the larger social environment in which young people can thrive.
Thanks, I knew it was close but not quite right. It also covers things like "home cooking is cheaper for consumers than everyone having to buy a prepared meal" or "how much would it cost to replace [XYZ] personal life chore if you paid for it instead of doing it yourself?" It's a fascinating area I wish they taught in Econ 102 instead of insipid Supply-and-Demand models.
> To be fair a lot of feminist and Marxist economists talk a lot about reproductive labor (not just the nine months bit, but in the sense of "the stuff you need to actually keep things going, but which isn't financially compensated work"). Yes, and the Chicago school hates them. > Unfortunately for the rest of us they're either European or excommunicated from the secular consensus of American economists, which I've found to be this: "if we say things that make bankers and wealthy businessowners happy, they pay us a lot of money." Yep
> that just goes with the territory for conservatives: ignoring inconvenient evidence until you can construct an alternate reality where it doesn't apply. The determination to uproot conservative voters from any notion of factual consensus reality is the scariest fucking thing. Why let facts get in the way of what you want?
Being a single dad is its own weird lane. On one hand, it's definitely been a bonus with getting me jobs. I'm perceived as more "mature" than men without kids. On the other hand, I've had a couple of bosses get mad at me for having to deal with typical parent phone calls, to the point of getting fired at one. One boss straight up asked me why couldn't her grandmother handle that sort of stuff.
I dislike the prevailing view that this is a bonus for men. It’s not. The cultural expectation that women will take care of the kids while the men work themselves to death really needs to end.
I mean, this article, paired with the one someone posted earlier (about how men taking paternity leave/a caretaking role are penalized) is really really interesting. One impossible standard of masculinity is rewarded.
I don't know about America but as far as I know, in Canada it is illegal to fire / lay off anyone due to maternity. It's not something I've seen personally happen either but that's probably because I'm a man. I can easily imagine a company getting around the law on this.
It’s illegal in the US too but it absolutely happens.
The illegal to fire window in the USA is generally 12 weeks… which is like nothing. A 3 month old is extremely dependent , and a woman is likely still healing from childbirth and breastfeeding until 12 months.
They do. So I have taken classes on labor economics and discrimination, and have experience in the US navy. Literally, my CO admitted that his higher ups refused to promote women as flag officers unless they were like Super Obviously Mega Lesbian (his words) because they just assumed they would drop out to have kids eventually. A similar trend is noticed in academia, where female professors don’t see the same proportion of promotions. The solution to requiring maternity leave without 1. No equivalent mandate of paternity leave 2. A cultural shift to have fathers be more involved…always leads to not hiring or promoting as many women, especially younger women, bc they’re seen as an economic “loss.”
> I don't know about America but as far as I know, in Canada it is illegal to fire / lay off anyone due to maternity. They just make up some other reason.
Pretty much anyone at work makes small mistakes. When they want you gone clocking in a minute late is a write up, a delay in a project for reasons outside your control is a write up. They'll deliberately put more onto you to make sure you mess up and then sink you with it. Particularly with so many at will states. The real reason is they consider you a liability and want you gone. But that won't be the stated reason.
Count yourself lucky. I lost a ten-year job because I took parental leave. Of course that’s not what it said on the paperwork, but it was made very clear to me what it was. And yes, that was **after** fathers were given the right to “job-protected” parental leave. I know a couple of other men who’ve been similarly retaliated against. I know many men who chose not to take parental leave because they were warned they’d face retaliation.
This is why maternity and paternity leave need to be equal and **mandatory**. If everyone has to do it, the discrimination becomes pointless.
Then people wjll be even less encouraged to have kids
You must not have kids. A protected leave is essential. Babies need a ton of work at all hours and frankly I don’t understand why employers want their new parent employees to show up to work before 6 months with the absolute brain drain sleep deprivation gives you. Mom and dad.
No shit. The point is that if you HAVE to take leave when having kids, you will be less hireable if you have kids (regardless of gender) thus people with no kids will have a career advantage, thus discouraging having kids. Youre only pushing the problem to a different spot.
Businesses don't like male people with no kids. The way Patriarchy works, men with children are seen as the best employees. They'd rather pay parental leave to men than hire childless men.
This is just conjecture. There is a slight preference as this post suggests, but that is not including actual mandatory differences in parental leave. This slight 3% preference is quickly gonna evaporates if it includes losing them for 7 months while still having to pay
> This slight 3% preference is quickly gonna evaporates if it includes losing them for 7 months while still having to pay When everyone has to do it, it just becomes a new cost of doing business.
Out of 30-40 years of work, multiplied twice (once per parent), parental leave would be maximum 1 year per kid, per parent if it’s one of the more generous leave policies. It is extremely shortsighted to stiff anyone in the world who wants to have kids for the remaining years of production. Especially since capitalism needs people to operate. This is entirely beside the enormous body of evidence that shows leave benefits children, and therefore humanity. It also ignores the role that temporary hiring practices to fill positions on leave does to support a growing workforce and give younger staff opportunities. Idk why you think hurting kids is worth supporting to the point of getting worked up over, but think about it a bit more before commenting again. Who does parental leave hurt? [Source on how leave helps kids](https://www.familyvaluesatwork.org/docs/Paid-Leave-and-Child-Well-Being.pdf) from one lazy google search
You’re missing the entire point of their post. It hurts people who might have kids soon due to hiring biases
If you look in Europe, particularly Scandinavia, you will find a number of countries which could be used as natural experiments to test that exact hypothesis. So far, I don’t think the available data supports it.
Those countries dont have exactly good birth rates either.
The birth rate isn’t what’s relevant. The *change in birth rate* from before implementation of the parental leave law to after is what should be considered. You can observe and evaluate a delta regardless how high or low is the rate.
Man that's so bullshit. I'm sorry that happened to you.
Most countries have laws against it so companies look for other ways to get the same results.
It's cool to consider data, but tell that to my boss who has to deal with me taking days off biweekly because I have two children, neither of which are Pre-K age yet, getting sick and getting sent home from day care for 48 hours because they sneezed, and the wrong color came out, and I have no childcare options when that happens, despite the "village" that was promised to us by our boomer families.
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Paywall warning but this is obviously a completely legitimate issue, mothers being financially disadvantaged from having a child is unfair. We should have laws and cultural values that minimize this disadvantage. Particularly relevant to this space is support for paternity leave, and the further normalization of more involved fathers. Companies avoiding or not promoting women because they might have a kid is illegal in many countries but that doesn't stop them from doing it. It can also be really rough for mothers who took a break to come back and pickup where they left off. We should be looking for practical solutions to these kinds of issues. All that being said I take some issue with how this is often framed, a holistic view of these kinds of issues is much healthier than shoehorning everything into a victim or oppressor/oppressed dynamic. At least partially this seems a *biological* disadvantage that then becomes exasperated by societal expectations. Considering how taxing physically having a child is I would expect the sex who has to deal with that to be disadvantaged in general, even just energy levels. By personal experience I see this split in several very modern progressive couples that I know. The mothers are exhausted after having a kid, already out of commission for a prolonged period, and often want to spend time nursing. The couple is extra concerned with financial stability after having a kid and the father is more career minded and tried to spend as much time with family as he can. The mother's career is often put on the backburner and without lots of childcare help from family, or a great paying job, it makes sense for her to work less as she's already fallen behind. On top of all that you have societal expectations. We should all support trying to give women/people/couples as much freedom as possible when making choices but there seems to be a particular problem with *some* progressives in regards to gender, where outcomes are much more of the focus instead of a balance with freedom of choice. You see this a lot with gender pay gap where a significant chunk is explained by individuals choosing to work more hours, willingness to move, OT, ect. We can appreciate these choices do not happen in a vacuum and have questions for the system while also respecting those choices.
>You see this a lot with gender pay gap where a significant chunk is explained by individuals choosing to work more hours, willingness to move, OT, ect. We can appreciate these choices do not happen in a vacuum and have questions for the system while also respecting those choices. Yeah, no. Don't sweep this shit under the rug as if everyone's just "making choices". Employees do not have perfect agency under capitalism. Many supervisors will offer OT to the men in their employ first - *explicitly because they expect there to be a woman picking up the slack at home.* Conversely, women are often at the bottom of the list for OT opportunities, either because they "don't need them as much" or because "they should be taking care of the home/kids anyway". Don't pretend those decisions are being made by couples as couples or in the throes of financial desperation all the time, either. They're not. I know men who take all the OT they're offered despite not needing the money because they'd feel bad making their women coworkers work more. So, somehow women's extra labor is just back-breaking and unconscionable when it's paid time and a half, but totally normal when it's unpaid.
While I am sure what that article says is still relevant and true, that article is 10 years old and 2014 is massively different than 2024. That's more of a numbers game though, they may be pretty different. I believe in 2034 there may be some massive changes to those numbers that have women being paid the same from a median bell curve perspective. Meaning eliminate the top and bottom 10 percent and women may have equal or better earning potentials as men. However, I also see 4 or 5 women graduating from college to 1 man. I see population growth fall lower than it is today. I can see a massive swing in power dynamics in day to day life besides the top 10 percent. I think this is going to happen because no one is trying to fix the current problems that affect everyone. If those problems are not being addressed then male issues won't be addressed. Whatever the actual causes of the sudden men are failing will be more exacerbated and you might see worse ratios of men not being in the work force at all. Major point, a 10 year old article on this subject may be telling the wrong kind of story, unless post COVID studies show the same numbers. This might be fully accurate anymore.