Unintended Consequences of Women's Liberation

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I've been running into these arguments recently, and from enough different people that I think they have some measure of popularity. They primarily focus on women entering the job market.

1) With two incomes people could charge more for housing (or some other product).

2) With the increase in employment seekers competing for the same number of jobs we have seen wage stagnation.

3) Think of the children.

I find these all to be dubious at best, but I am not sure how best to refute them (or test them if they are true). For the first, I don't think pricing systems work that way. The second seems more logical. For the third I remember a study about working moms and their children, but I con't remember the conclusion .

[bookitty]

That argument assumes that women having jobs is some sort of new social phenomena that got out of hand after WWII. It's ridiculous. Aside from a brief period of prosperity in the 50's and 60's (when taxes were significantly higher, btw) the only women who were staying at home with the kids were the upper classes.

Every other class provided factory workers, lace knitters, costermongers, shop girls, maids, fishwives, cooks, seamstresses, hat makers, nannies, produce sellers, nurses, women who worked the field alongside the men, and/or prostitutes. Nobody was staying home with the children of these women because those children were also working.

It is a flawed premise based on some weird math - women make up roughly 50% of the workplace, unemployment is at 17%, get rid of the women and voila! prosperity for the men! - and a view of history that starts with 1941.

[Cain]

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

2) With the increase in employment seekers competing for the same number of jobs we have seen wage stagnation.

Despite what bookitty says, this seems to obviously have merit. Marx talked about the "army of the unemployed" and the downward pressure they exert on wages. Right now people complain about immigration (in-sourcing) and globalization (out-sourcing), and those complaints, while often xenophobic/racist, do have some merit.

For this reason I don't think 1) rings true. If it takes two incomes of today to equal one income of yesteryear, then they can't charge much more.

Quote:

3) Think of the children.

Women are generally better care-givers than men, a view I base on personal experiences. That doesn't mean women ought to stay home barefoot and pregnant (they should wear shoes when they clean the gutters).


Another question is one in the news: what were the consequences of the Pill? You don't have women's lib to the extent of today without reproductive freedom. Now that we're able to fool mother nature, we can have sex without one of the nastier consequences, but what has this brought in terms of family formation?

Another question: Isn't it true that multiple studies have found home-makers are happier than working women.

[TragicMonkey]

Originally Posted by Cain

Another question: Isn't it true that multiple studies have found home-makers are happier than working women.

Even if it were true, it could just be a side effect of economics: you have to be in fairly comfortable financial circumstances to be able to forego working. To have such financial security might itself be the cause of happiness.

[23_Tauri]

Originally Posted by Cain

Another question: Isn't it true that multiple studies have found home-makers are happier than working women.

I know I'd rather stay at home than go into the friggin' office 5 days a week....

[bookitty]

Originally Posted by 23_Tauri

I know I'd rather stay at home than go into the friggin' office 5 days a week....

And I know a lot of moms who would enjoy the luxury of a five day week.

But that's not really the point. There are so many factors which contribute to unemployment, stagnating wages, inflation, housing markets, and all other aspects of our current financial woes that narrowing the focus to any single working group is ridiculous. Doing so from misplaced, inaccurate nostalgia can best be, if we are charitable, described as naive.

[JJM 777]

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

1) With two incomes people could charge more for housing (or some other product).

I have some serious reading comprehension problems with this sentence. I have no clue what this claim actually claims.

But let me guess: with two persons earning money in the family, families can afford more expensive housing? True, but it should translate into higher quality or size of the housing too, not only a bubble of inflated prices of previously cheaper housing -- which is a theory whose significance I doubt to be remarkable.

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

2) With the increase in employment seekers competing for the same number of jobs we have seen wage stagnation.

Could be true, if the national economy doesn´t function in such a healthy way that the larger employee base would translate into more jobs and more production in the same ratio. Which I actually assume to be the case (refutations of this belief are welcome) -- if so, then the claim is baseless.

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

3) Think of the children.

I am thinking about my child, and I have applied for a place in state-subsidized kindergartens (as private ones are too pricey for us), but so far we have failed to get our child in a kindergarten, and we are worried about the delay in social and language development that this might cause.

Yep, think of the children -- well-run kindergartens are great places, kids love them and benefit from them developmentally.

[ehcks]

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

1) With two incomes people could charge more for housing (or some other product).

2) With the increase in employment seekers competing for the same number of jobs we have seen wage stagnation.

1 is just standard inflation. If families have more money, they can buy bigger things, and those things cost more. Doesn't really mean much.

2 doesn't sound right. If there is a larger supply of workers, there should be a larger supply of jobs. Generally, more employees means more productivity. And since we have 1, where families have more money, that also means more sales and income. And this actually counters the complaint of 1. Greater supply and greater demand cancel out to the same prices.

[rjh01]

With the increase in the number of women in the workforce there is an increase in living standards, people want more goods and services and so more jobs are created. It also means that some men can stay at home and do other things.

I did question one child about what impact there was for him because his mother had started to go to work for a few hours everyday. He told me that he now got more clothing and other things. So yes, think of the children and go and earn more money so that you can buy them more stuff.

[epepke]

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

I've been running into these arguments recently, and from enough different people that I think they have some measure of popularity. They primarily focus on women entering the job market.

1) With two incomes people could charge more for housing (or some other product).

Housing is also much larger than it was in the days of single-income families.

Quote:

2) With the increase in employment seekers competing for the same number of jobs we have seen wage stagnation.

That's possibly true. Essentially doubling the work force overnight undoubtedly had an effect, but when this happens, it's usually pretty short-lived. The supply-and-demand idea works, but not for a single resource in the long term, because it ignores the effects of long-term investment.

Another factor has had a much bigger effect in the United States. Starting during the 1970s, corporate profits continued to go up faster than personal income. Due, I think, to the individualism in the US, people thought of poverty in terms of personal rather than social problems. So we didn't organize and get the more time off and shorter work days that people pushed for in Europe.

Quote:

3) Think of the children.

It's useful to remember that in the past, practically everybody worked, and practically nobody got paid. The children were always with them and always were part of the work. The modern concept of work for pay is really a product of urbanization and the Industrial revolution. With the latter, of course, the men traveled for work, which after all, was extremely dangerous and damaging.

The nuclear family, which is what people think the "women's movement" changed, was a mere blip in history in the United States. It was practically nonexistent before 1920, and it was falling apart by 1960. That's 40 years. It's been 50 years since then.

The nuclear family was, I think, bad for children. Women's entry into the workforce in large numbers only extended this trend. A couple of decades ago, people were talking about how telecommunicating would change this, but it's failed to happen to much effect. If you were to ask me why, I'd say that it's because the nuclear family and the salaryman effect spawned a growth industry in largely counterproductive middle managers who justify their existence by being able to peer over people's backs in cubicles and open offices.

You'll see some pretty perspicacious commentary on this in movies from the 1940s. I think it's bad, but it wasn't particularly women who did it, nor particularly men. Small-minded people of both sexes did it, and women in the workforce before 1960 weren't particularly innocent.

I find these all to be dubious at best, but I am not sure how best to refute them (or test them if they are true). For the first, I don't think pricing systems work that way. The second seems more logical. For the third I remember a study about working moms and their children, but I con't remember the conclusion .[/quote]

[Meadmaker]

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

I've been running into these arguments recently, and from enough different people that I think they have some measure of popularity. They primarily focus on women entering the job market.

1) With two incomes people could charge more for housing (or some other product).

2) With the increase in employment seekers competing for the same number of jobs we have seen wage stagnation.

3) Think of the children.

I don't understand. What's the "argument" that you are trying to "refute"?

As for the truth of the statements, number 1 is obviously true. It is no secret that double income families have bigger houses than single income families, and there is no doubt that the availability of more income to spend on housing has also resulted in house price inflation, i.e. not just larger/higher quality homes, but higher cost for the same homes.

During the decade of the 2000s, and especially as the Great Recession got into full swing, we had a huge problem in part because people bought houses that they could afford, but only based on the existence of two incomes. When either one lost their job, they couldn't afford it anymore, and lost their homes. There's no doubt about it. Two incomes has been one of many contributing factors to housing inflation.

Number 2 is debatable. There are so many factors at work here that separating it out would be difficult or impossible. However, it seems reasonable that when the labor force grows faster than the economy, there is downward pressure on wages. During the decade of the 1980s especially, the entry of women into the workforce represented a huge jump in the labor pool.

By the way, assuming that the people you are arguing against were conservative and suggesting that the entry of women in huge numbers into the labor force was a bad thing, you might want to point out that a lot of the economic growth of the 1980s was actually due to a sudden influx of competent, qualified labor into the labor pool, and not to the Reagan tax cuts.

One other side effect often overlooked is the effect on the economics of health care and education. Prior to the large scale entry of women into the work force, women were, for the most part, held to four professions. They could be secretaries, nurses, schoolteachers, or full time moms. This artificially constrained salaries in health care and education, and made available a huge number of highly intelligent workers in the education field at prices lower than their free market value.

In health care, the difference is harder to anlyze than in education, because the entry of women doctors has lowered doctor wages a bit, and the job of nurse and/or medical technician has changed remarkably over the years that the entry of women has just been one of many factors affecting health care costs, and probably not the most important one.

As for number 3, it's an empty statement, at least by itself.

[IchabodPlain]

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

I've been running into these arguments recently, and from enough different people that I think they have some measure of popularity. They primarily focus on women entering the job market.

1) With two incomes people could charge more for housing (or some other product).

2) With the increase in employment seekers competing for the same number of jobs we have seen wage stagnation.

3) Think of the children.

I find these all to be dubious at best, but I am not sure how best to refute them (or test them if they are true). For the first, I don't think pricing systems work that way. The second seems more logical. For the third I remember a study about working moms and their children, but I con't remember the conclusion .

Doesn't 2) defeat the premise of 1)? If wages stagnate such that two incomes become equal to one previous income, how can housing prices inflate?

Both premises assume similar demographic and geographic distribution, but that economically doesn't hold in reality. Some areas are hiring and/or firing at faster rates than others, so job market conditions vary.

Implicit in the argument is that women are making the job market worse. That if they just stayed home, raised the kids, and kept the house clean, things would get better. New entrants to the labor force may not compete with existing job-seekers (it is indeed possible to have a labor supply shortage in one area or market, even when the general conditions could be said to have an over-supply of labor. I.e. rising unemployment).

If properly allocated, increasing the labor pool will increase output. This makes society wealthier than before, not poorer.

Empirically, track the number of two income earning households against single earners, the difference in annual income between single and two earning households, and housing values along that corresponding time. Is there a correlation that warrants future analysis?

[Galteeth]

The argument is predicated on two-wage earners versus one. The easiest way to counter it is to point out that this is a false assumption. A man could provide the "caretaker" role.

[Cain]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

Even if it were true, it could just be a side effect of economics: you have to be in fairly comfortable financial circumstances to be able to forego working. To have such financial security might itself be the cause of happiness.

I'm pretty sure that's controlled for, but there are all kinds of confounding variables that go both ways: maybe women who work have spouses who help out at home. We should also probably draw a difference between working women and career minded women.

I would like to stay at home, but I can't cook, and I hate doing laundry and dishes. I hate cleaning in general, and I will never, ever, ever change a dirty diaper. Ever.

[psionl0]

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

1) With two incomes people could charge more for housing (or some other product).

This is quite logical. The same number of families (but with more disposable income) chasing the same number of properties is going to have some effect on property prices. It is likely however, that this effect has been swamped by the activities of speculators and the reckless lending activities of the banks.

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

2) With the increase in employment seekers competing for the same number of jobs we have seen wage stagnation.

Not so likely. It's not as if somebody opened the gates and told all the hitherto housebound housewives to charge into the job market.

The empirical evidence seems to be that as women entered the workforce, the job market expanded to accommodate them.

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

3) Think of the children.

Meaningless though this phrase is, it is true that institutionalized childcare is not necessarily the best thing for growing children. In the first few years of a child's life, he is yours to bond with, educate, share experiences with etc. When the child is older, you won't have those opportunities anymore. You should really think twice before you turn over the formative years of your child's life to an institution.

[Captain_Swoop]

I lie and grew up in North Yorkshire. Women have always had to work, not by choice but because wages were so low one poorly paid job wasn't enough to support a family.

All the cotton and wool mills were filled with thousands upon thousands of women. All the clothing factories the same. In York the Rowntree and Frys chocolate factories employed thousands of women. In all the fishing ports women worked on the queys gutting and filleting fish and baiting miles of 'long lines' and making and repairing nets.Same in Farming, women did as much work as the men.

It always makes me laugh when they go ona bout how the WW2 'Womens Land Army' liberated women and they went out to work fo the first time.

Maybe the middle and upper class women went out for the first time but working class women were already there.

[HansMustermann]

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

I've been running into these arguments recently, and from enough different people that I think they have some measure of popularity. They primarily focus on women entering the job market.

1) With two incomes people could charge more for housing (or some other product).

Anyone professing that stupidity is actually guilty of not understanding basic economics.

For a start, economics is a matter of not just demand, but demand AND supply. When you have twice as many people producing stuff, and twice as many people producing that stuff, things tend to even out.

Yes, technically for some particular kinds of goods the prices may go up, but for other kinds of goods it will go down, because it has to even out on the whole.

But even for individual products it's not a given that the prices would go up, because here's another factor in basic economic theory: employment is just another market, and very few jobs or people aren't fungible there. Even if one wanted to take an argument along the lines of "only men build houses, but both women and men have money to buy them, hence the price goes up", well, it's not that simple anyway, but even if we trust them about the premises for the scope of that discussion, those men who build houses are in turn part of a fairly fungible supply of employees. If enough other jobs are taken by women, you have more men available to build houses, so it still evens out.

Second, another basic economic concept is the elasticity of supply and demand mechanics. Unlike others, this is pretty much the linchpin of why a free market is better than an arbitrary economy, and why the free market self-corrects. If more people have money to buy shoes, this will not just drive shoe prices up, but in the process convince more people to cash in on that by making more shoes. Ditto for houses and everything else.

But from a different point of view, ultimately money isn't everything. What matters is that if you have 300,000,000 people consuming stuff, their standard of living ultimately depends on how much they can consume. That's what money really is about: what you can buy with it. Having twice the people producing stuff inherently means more stuff per capita you can get.

And on that topic, the ultimate test of it all, is exactly that: how much you can buy. Purchasing power. And at a quick googling, the purchasing-power-parity average daily income in 1993 dollars for the industrialized world, was $19.49 in 1950 versus $66.12 for 2000. (Source: http://www.piie.com/publications/cha...8/2iie3489.pdf citing data from World Bank development indicators.) This means that if you take even the same family with just one income, which they pine for, not only it's not worse off than in 1950, but can actually buy over 3 times more stuff.

Really, I'm invariably asked to believe some idiot that things were so nice back in the '50s-'60s, when only Real Men worked, and that nowadays those dastardly women going to work ruined it from everyone to the point that you can't live on a single wage any more, bachelors are crushed by the high prices, bla, bla, bla. But it's blatantly false. A single wage nowadays can buy over 3 times as much stuff as it did in 1950. If their world is so rosy for an average family of 2 adults and 2 kids in 1950, then nowadays a bachelor on an average wage can buy over 3 times more stuff and doesn't have to share that stuff with a wife and 2 kids.

Whatever changes happened in the meantime, not only didn't make it worse, but they allowed standards of living which vastly surpass those from 1950. If the same people were actually forced to live on the wages and purchasing power from 1950, they'd probably balk instantly, not find it an improvement.

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

2) With the increase in employment seekers competing for the same number of jobs we have seen wage stagnation.

Just like the previous point, this hinges on the underlying assumption that one half of the supply-demand equation is basically fixed, and that the increased supply of money just comes out of nowhere for point (1) or essentially disappears into nowhere for point (2).

In reality jobs also depend on the existence of a market. If there are more people buying cars, you hire more people to make cars, and if there are less people buying cars, you hire less people to make cars for them. The elasticity of supply and demand (even if not as perfectly elastic in reality as in perfect market economic theory) is not just a basic principle of free market economics, but observable even in every day life. Factories which sell more stuff, expand and hire more people, while factories which don't sell enough stuff, end up producing less and releasing people into the unemployed pool, one way or the other.

That availability of more people with money in point (1) isn't some miraculous thing, unconnected to employment or supply mechanics. Ultimately the money largely goes in circles. A lot of people being paid, means a lot of people buying stuff, which means a lot of people being paid to produce that stuff,

But more importantly, even as stupid claims by idiots detached from reality go, one should choose either claim (1) or claim (2), but not both, because they're fundamentally incompatible. If the number of jobs is constant as in claim (2), then there can be no double number of people with wages to create the effect in claim (1).

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

3) Think of the children.

So? Even if there were some difference there, I don't think anyone has the right to demand that a gender or any other category sacrifice their freedom, rights and general well being for some minor benefit to the children. Especially since for a lot of people, one would have to ask them to start making children in the first place, before it even applies. Ultimately anyone's making that argument, betrays a sexist world view in which women are there just as some baby mills to make and raise children.

[Galteeth]

Originally Posted by HansMustermann

Anyone professing that stupidity is actually guilty of not understanding basic economics.

For a start, economics is a matter of not just demand, but demand AND supply. When you have twice as many people producing stuff, and twice as many people producing that stuff, things tend to even out.

Yes, technically for some particular kinds of goods the prices may go up, but for other kinds of goods it will go down, because it has to even out on the whole.

But even for individual products it's not a given that the prices would go up, because here's another factor in basic economic theory: employment is just another market, and very few jobs or people aren't fungible there. Even if one wanted to take an argument along the lines of "only men build houses, but both women and men have money to buy them, hence the price goes up", well, it's not that simple anyway, but even if we trust them about the premises for the scope of that discussion, those men who build houses are in turn part of a fairly fungible supply of employees. If enough other jobs are taken by women, you have more men available to build houses, so it still evens out.

Second, another basic economic concept is the elasticity of supply and demand mechanics. Unlike others, this is pretty much the linchpin of why a free market is better than an arbitrary economy, and why the free market self-corrects. If more people have money to buy shoes, this will not just drive shoe prices up, but in the process convince more people to cash in on that by making more shoes. Ditto for houses and everything else.

But from a different point of view, ultimately money isn't everything. What matters is that if you have 300,000,000 people consuming stuff, their standard of living ultimately depends on how much they can consume. That's what money really is about: what you can buy with it. Having twice the people producing stuff inherently means more stuff per capita you can get.

And on that topic, the ultimate test of it all, is exactly that: how much you can buy. Purchasing power. And at a quick googling, the purchasing-power-parity average daily income in 1993 dollars for the industrialized world, was $19.49 in 1950 versus $66.12 for 2000. (Source: http://www.piie.com/publications/cha...8/2iie3489.pdf citing data from World Bank development indicators.) This means that if you take even the same family with just one income, which they pine for, not only it's not worse off than in 1950, but can actually buy over 3 times more stuff.

Really, I'm invariably asked to believe some idiot that things were so nice back in the '50s-'60s, when only Real Men worked, and that nowadays those dastardly women going to work ruined it from everyone to the point that you can't live on a single wage any more, bachelors are crushed by the high prices, bla, bla, bla. But it's blatantly false. A single wage nowadays can buy over 3 times as much stuff as it did in 1950. If their world is so rosy for an average family of 2 adults and 2 kids in 1950, then nowadays a bachelor on an average wage can buy over 3 times more stuff and doesn't have to share that stuff with a wife and 2 kids.

Whatever changes happened in the meantime, not only didn't make it worse, but they allowed standards of living which vastly surpass those from 1950. If the same people were actually forced to live on the wages and purchasing power from 1950, they'd probably balk instantly, not find it an improvement.



Just like the previous point, this hinges on the underlying assumption that one half of the supply-demand equation is basically fixed, and that the increased supply of money just comes out of nowhere for point (1) or essentially disappears into nowhere for point (2).

In reality jobs also depend on the existence of a market. If there are more people buying cars, you hire more people to make cars, and if there are less people buying cars, you hire less people to make cars for them. The elasticity of supply and demand (even if not as perfectly elastic in reality as in perfect market economic theory) is not just a basic principle of free market economics, but observable even in every day life. Factories which sell more stuff, expand and hire more people, while factories which don't sell enough stuff, end up producing less and releasing people into the unemployed pool, one way or the other.

That availability of more people with money in point (1) isn't some miraculous thing, unconnected to employment or supply mechanics. Ultimately the money largely goes in circles. A lot of people being paid, means a lot of people buying stuff, which means a lot of people being paid to produce that stuff,

But more importantly, even as stupid claims by idiots detached from reality go, one should choose either claim (1) or claim (2), but not both, because they're fundamentally incompatible. If the number of jobs is constant as in claim (2), then there can be no double number of people with wages to create the effect in claim (1).



So? Even if there were some difference there, I don't think anyone has the right to demand that a gender or any other category sacrifice their freedom, rights and general well being for some minor benefit to the children. Especially since for a lot of people, one would have to ask them to start making children in the first place, before it even applies. Ultimately anyone's making that argument, betrays a sexist world view in which women are there just as some baby mills to make and raise children.

Oh man, I would like to debate so many of your statements but it's not really relevant to the topic. Economics 101 is oversimplified to the point of being wrong.

[AvalonXQ]

It is an interesting question in terms of a "race to the bottom". If we have two sets of parents, and one is willing to provide 40 hours of labor a week (one working parent) while the other is willing to provide 80 hours (two working parents), the standard wage is going to be based on what the 80-hour couple will accept. If every/most set is only willing to provide 40 hours, then the standard wage is going to be based on that.
So, as more wives start going to work, the wages will likely adjust relative to the expenses so that the remaining wives have to go to work to maintain their standard of living.

[Captain_Swoop]

Wages are based on what the employer can get away with paying, not a penny more.

[Moss]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

Wages are based on what the employer can get away with paying, not a penny more.

Getting away with means what exactly?

Most of the reason why these arguments are somewhat problematic have already been mentioned.
I'm not sure why the wages should depend on what a working couple would accept. I'd rather think the lowest common denominator for wages is what a single worker with no dependents is willing to accept.

[Ausmerican]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

I lie and grew up in North Yorkshire. Women have always had to work, not by choice but because wages were so low one poorly paid job wasn't enough to support a family.

All the cotton and wool mills were filled with thousands upon thousands of women. All the clothing factories the same. In York the Rowntree and Frys chocolate factories employed thousands of women. In all the fishing ports women worked on the queys gutting and filleting fish and baiting miles of 'long lines' and making and repairing nets.Same in Farming, women did as much work as the men.

It always makes me laugh when they go ona bout how the WW2 'Womens Land Army' liberated women and they went out to work fo the first time.

Maybe the middle and upper class women went out for the first time but working class women were already there.

Your first two words put your entire post in doubt!

[Ausmerican]

Tangentially there is one problem that will always be with us and increasing and that is unemployment. Mechanization, computerization, cheap third world labor and an ever growing population mean that there will possibly never be enough jobs for everybody. Especially at the current level of 40 hours a week as a standard.

As to the OP, taking the gender out of the equation, I could possibly see a time when someone will propose that only one half of a couple that earn a certain level of income could be employed at any one time. Which half would have to be left up to the couple or even rotated. Another possible band-aid would be reducing the standard work week although without a compensating increase in compensation this would create its own problems.

[Ausmerican]

Originally Posted by 23_Tauri

I know I'd rather stay at home than go into the friggin' office 5 days a week....

I was a stay at home dad for the first three years of my daughters life and loved it.

[bookitty]

Originally Posted by AvalonXQ

It is an interesting question in terms of a "race to the bottom". If we have two sets of parents, and one is willing to provide 40 hours of labor a week (one working parent) while the other is willing to provide 80 hours (two working parents), the standard wage is going to be based on what the 80-hour couple will accept. If every/most set is only willing to provide 40 hours, then the standard wage is going to be based on that.
So, as more wives start going to work, the wages will likely adjust relative to the expenses so that the remaining wives have to go to work to maintain their standard of living.

If you ignore all other factors (changing industries, deregulation, reduced funding for job training, inflation, growth in GPA following expanding work force, etc.) than yes, it is possible to assume that a a growth in the work force might affect wages.

It's odd how people always bring everything back to the most powerless group, as if their actions have consequence that is equal to the actions of those with the most power.

[AvalonXQ]

Originally Posted by bookitty

If you ignore all other factors (changing industries, deregulation, reduced funding for job training, inflation, growth in GPA following expanding work force, etc.) than yes, it is possible to assume that a a growth in the work force might affect wages.

This is an important point. Assuming that the additional workforce is providing real benefits to the economy, the general standard of living may go up, and the "baseline" accepted by the 80-hour parents may reflect the new increase. The 40-hour parents, then, are stuck at a lower "baseline" that may nonetheless make them no worse off than they would have been before the general standard of living increase.

Eh, economics is complicated.

[epepke]

Originally Posted by Galteeth

The argument is predicated on two-wage earners versus one. The easiest way to counter it is to point out that this is a false assumption. A man could provide the "caretaker" role.

From the mid-to-late 60s through about 1993, when my father died, my mother went out and worked, and my father stayed at home. This was not some big progressive/liberal thing (in fact, my father was fairly conservative) but just the way it worked out for them.

[HansMustermann]

Originally Posted by Ausmerican

Tangentially there is one problem that will always be with us and increasing and that is unemployment. Mechanization, computerization, cheap third world labor and an ever growing population mean that there will possibly never be enough jobs for everybody. Especially at the current level of 40 hours a week as a standard.

Yet unemployment in the USA was as low as 4.4% in May 2007, and as high as 10% at its peak in Oct 2009. Obviously there ARE enough jobs for more than half the population, and excluding half the workforce from employment would necessarily lead to some jobs not being done any more.

What are you going to cut back on? Education? Healthcare? Services? SOMETHING has to go, because even at Oct 2009 rates, if you excluded half the workforce from employment, you can't possibly fill more than 50/90=55% of the existing jobs any more. Far from creating some shiny happy utopia, now you still have the same number of people you divide the pie between, but can only produce a pie that's 45% smaller.

Furthermore, since unemployment is one of the reasons usually handwaved, either per se or in some "there can't be enough jobs for everyone" phrasing, I would ask you to get familiar with the Phillips Curve. Or the right wing version, the Natural Rate Of Unemployment, which still has the same implication, that given a certain state of the economy and level wages, there still is a natural level of unemployment to be expected.

Even if you fired half the workforce, you still wouldn't have 0% employment, because that's not even desirable. All else being equal, pushing unemployment too low drives inflation too high, and at 0% unemployment you'd have incredibly high inflation. The government would step in via fiscal policy long before it actually hit 0%, to prevent bigger problems.

So what I'm saying is that you still wouldn't have jobs for EVERYONE who isn't thus excluded from employment. You might have, dunno, 5% unemployment instead of 8%, but you would still have some. So it wouldn't even solve the problem that people think it would.

Originally Posted by Ausmerican

As to the OP, taking the gender out of the equation, I could possibly see a time when someone will propose that only one half of a couple that earn a certain level of income could be employed at any one time. Which half would have to be left up to the couple or even rotated. Another possible band-aid would be reducing the standard work week although without a compensating increase in compensation this would create its own problems.

Well, you don't have to be a prophet or clairvoyant to predict that someone, somewhater, at some point in time, will propose something completely retarded

And in this case, it doesn't even take any guesses, because that's usually half the argument being made. Since overt sexism kinda went out of fashion at some point in the past, nowadays most of its apologists think they're smart if they just make a one-two punch argument and just let you put it together to its logical (and sexist as heck) conclusion. The one-two punch comes invariably with the two arguments being:

1. We're totally not discriminating by gender, but one of the two has to stay home. (At this point some will take it even further and accompany it with some fist-shaking at those dastardly feminists who are postulated to oppose, or not fight enough for, fathers staying at home with the kids.) BUT

2. <insert rationalizations why verily, the women are best fit and most natural choice for the staying at home with the kids>. Usually it's some form of evo-psych garbage and postulates about biology, but occasionally more original BS does get posted.

[iknownothing]

I think depending on employer-provided health insurance is part of what drives women into the workforce. (You can't blame everything on feminists.)

I know women who would rather reduce their hours, and could if it wasn't for the fact that they need 40 hours to qualify for health insurance coverage.

I'm lucky in that I can work 9-4 (with no benefits), because my husband's employer has relatively good insurance available, and is a very stable job. If his work didn't provide coverage, or if it did but was less secure, it would be more important for me to find a 40-hour/week job with benefits.

Imagine how liberating it would be if health insurance could be separated from employment. Not just for women -- for everyone who's tied to a job for the benefits, but would rather strike out in a new career, innovate, start a new business, etc.

[23_Tauri]

Originally Posted by bookitty

And I know a lot of moms who would enjoy the luxury of a five day week.

Who mentioned anything about babies???!!

Originally Posted by bookitty

But that's not really the point. There are so many factors which contribute to unemployment, stagnating wages, inflation, housing markets, and all other aspects of our current financial woes that narrowing the focus to any single working group is ridiculous. Doing so from misplaced, inaccurate nostalgia can best be, if we are charitable, described as naive.

You forgot to mention immigration

[Skeptic Ginger]

I've not heard Bookitty's claim that women were in the work force in any big way before WWII. But I think the prosperity vs need for a second income has many facets not considered in the OP. For example, prosperity which led to a lot of consumer goods which freed up women's time played a role in women moving into the workforce.

The dishwasher, the microwave and all the other cooking and cleaning gadgets freed up the housewives' time.

If, as the OP claims, the second job came first and the need for a second income came second thus leading to inflation, one should be able to look at the history of that inflationary period in the 70s and find evidence of it. I don't think that's what the evidence shows. I think the evidence shows inflation and stagnating wages came first and second incomes came second.

But one must also consider that economists, in particular political ideologue economists, don't agree on the causes and cures of our economic woes.


From the right one has the government's intervention, or if you are Ron Paul, the Fed's interventions, at fault:

Quote:

According to Samuelson, the inflation of the 1970s resulted when the U.S. government tried too hard to eliminate the business cycle.

The U.S. economy was strong immediately after WWII, and the three recessions of the 1950s were mild, at least compared to the Depression. Government economists came to believe that they could keep the economy at perpetual full employment by stimulating when things got slow, and raising taxes and interest rates when the economy overheated -- as manifested in higher inflation.

But in 1966, 1969, and 1974, when the Federal Reserve appropriately tightened monetary policy and the economy stalled, politicians and the public were not happy, and the Fed caved in too early on the inflation fight. Compared to a 23 percent increase in the money supply that funded the prosperous 1950s, the Fed allowed money to expand 44 percent in the 1960s and 78 percent in the 1970s. Samuelson writes:
The real villains, claimed [Fed chairman Arthur] Burns, were "philosophic and political currents" that created inflationary pressures. Defeating inflation required a new "political environment."

From the left you have the influence of corporations and the greed of the 1%, both of whom's money owns the government, at fault:

Quote:

Increasing Authority of the Private Sphere: Corporations were originally set up to serve the state, Rothkopf observed, but over time, their autonomy and authority increased. This has been particularly true in the United States, including most recently in the Clinton administration’s overenthusiastic championing of free trade and globalization, Rothkopf said. The private sector’s power culminated in the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case, which revolved around the issue of whether a corporation is—legally speaking—a person or not.

Public Pushback: Rothkopf argued that while the Soviet economic model had too much state interference, the pendulum has swung too far the other way in the U.S. model of capitalism. Part of the problem is that when government power is rolled back, the void is not filled by liberty but rather by other power centers, most notably corporations. The current American model has shown that it is not very good at advancing state interests, and its main “achievement” is promoting inequality, Rothkopf asserted. The power of corporations and private money is also corrupting politics; over half of all the money spent by super PACs in the last six months was donated by only 200 people, undermining the roots of American democracy, he added.

(emphasis mine)

I think the evidence supports the global corporate control of multiple governments' policies, which favors corporate profits over the social welfare of the common person as the more significant underlying cause of the current economic woes.

Of course, I'm fresh from hearing Rothkopf's introduce his book last night at Seattle's Town Hall. An interesting side note, he cited the example of Sweden's capitalism, often cited as socialism by the right wing here. Apparently when Saab went under financially, the country's social safety net which provides workers with income and retraining for a new job, meant the government could let Saab go under and not bail the car company out. Compare that to the US which had an inadequate safety net thus forcing the government to bail GM out. It's an interesting look at capitalist market forces from two distinctly different vantage points.