R4 Womens Hour, young women preferring to stay at home?

Excellent post Womble.

I feel like standing up and applauding that post at 09:40, Bungo. Absolutely nail on head.

I know this is UK-specific, but the other problem for so many young people and couples is the London-centric focus of business and government. Having all the best jobs on a single region pushes property prices in that area to unaffordable levels. There are huge swathes of the UK where family-sized houses are very affordable on median wages. If jobs were more evenly spread around the country, property prices would be more sensible and there would be less strain on family finances.

Mm...what's the definition they've used for "economically inactive" though? Is it people who are not earning? Those claiming benefits? Carers (including sahps)?.

What pisses me off is that people are only considered to have any value if they are generating money.

Lbc covered this recently too. not sure if it's the same report they used as it was late teens they asked.
They put it down to unrealistic expectations of cost of living e.g not realising it takes most people 2 wages to keep a home. Or expecting to marry well .

I do hate the pressure each side feels, we just all need to do what's right for our family and stuff everyone else! What works for me and us won't next door and that's fine for my neighbour too.

That 24% women 1% men thing was referring to the reasons why young people are economically inactive - amongst economically inactive young people, 24% of the women were parents (I assume they meant SAHP) but only 1% of men were

Yes, I think you're right - I've just listened back to it at 35:59, although the wording is slightly ambiguous:

Jenni: Belinda, the report says that twice as many young women are economically inactive compared to young men. What do you suppose lies behind that disparity that they're not going out trying to earn their own ..
Belinda: Yeah I think 24% of those young women are parents so .. whereas 1% of men in the findings was a parent so I think it's basically because of their parenting role and the fact that they've got young children and are staying at home.

(Except only a quarter of the economically inactive women were in fact SAHPs)

She then goes on to say that 24% of women were looking for employment and something like 34% of men were looking for employment and men were more likely to have been rejected from apprenticeships and more likely to feel they'd been turned down for promotion.

So that doesn't stack up with the previous quote that twice as many young women are economically inactive compared to young men. I don't think the two 24%s cover the same population since most SAHPs aren't looking for work.

fourormore I feel the same. My DC are 7 and 4, now both at school, and I haven't worked since the eldest was born.

I am planning a return to work in the next year after some retraining, DH is now at a point in his career (having gone at it unfettered for the last 8 years) where he has much more autonomy over his day and is senior enough to say that he is working from home for a day, or ask for meetings to start at a time that allows him to do the school run or whatever. Much easier for me to go back now that he can take the strain on that front rather than both of us juggling frantically on lowish wages 8 years ago.

The only thing I now feel slightly 'unfeminist' about, is that it is DH's high earnings which will initially pay for great childcare to allow me to have an actual career rather than just a job.

I'm glad you had enough of a cushion that you could make the choice to work at a loss for a few years lighteningirl. Most of us do not. My dh does do his share, he had the capacity to earn more than me so as a team it makes sense to maximise his earnings however much that costs me personally.

I'm not actually young by my definition any more having clipped 40. Although the definition of 'young' has been inching up with my generation, the generation where inequality started to bite, I think quite deliberately as an excuse as life has become harder and harder for our age group. Havig clipped 40 life is no less hard, but I think even the idiots in charge can see how ridiculous it is to call anyone over 40 young. The generations behind are even worse with increasing debt to start off in life. What choices do they realistically have available? Youth unemployment is extraordinarily high.

The facts are that social divisions are huge, that however much you've tried to improve your life compared to previous generations, previous generations are materially much better off and were at a far earlier age due to higher real wages relative to cost of living. Work does not pay the way it did. Go have a look at notesbrokensociety.wordpress.com/2014/09/07/hard-work-why-we-need-to-change-the-way-we-think-about-work-pay-and-benefits/ or notesbrokensociety.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/poorer-than-our-parents-the-politics-of-the-bleeding-obvious/

The rhetoric around personal choice and responsibility has gone too far. I am a part of a society and I am not responsible for its shifting goalposts. There has to be a balance. What about the choices of the governing neoliberalist classes who have deliberately increased house prices, deliberately encouraged buy-to-let, deliberately choose to let the 5 biggest UK banks make huge profits while paying not a penny in tax legally and similarly other rich companies, deliberately put someof our poorest people in positions they know will cause hardship and possibly death, deliberately choose to cut inheritance tax for the wealthy and public services for ordinary people, deliberately choose to shift more and more public money into private hands, deliberately choose to cut public sector professions and choose to increase retraining costs putting it out of reach for anyone older, deliberately choose to do everything they can to foster huge and growing inequality?

The big choices I made that I can be criticised for are a) choosing a socially useful profession at a time when it looked healthy and the cost of living wasn't so high and b) having 2 kids. Not much in comparison is it.

I am now a SAHM to two. Not really 'young' as I'm 30 this year but have been off work for 3 years now since I had my son.

Reason being, my mother was never at home, always working from early until late and was so tired she never did anything with all 3 of us, not even a story and we didn't have anyone else to do it as my stepfather was a drunk abusive idiot. I desperately wanted someone around after school, to help with homework and to do stuff with but there was no one - plus we didn't even get nice stuff from all her working!

I wanted to be present for my childrens younger life and this was very important to me.
I do feel under pressure to work asap from my H and society and I probably will start working again within the next two years.

Seems they have seen their mums trying to have it all / do it all and decided it's best to stay at home.

Yes I work part time in a 'job' not a career. This is partly due to watching my mum struggle.
My dm was always stressed, everything was rushed, she was knackered at the weekends and things like going shopping/swimming were a chore. I had a happy, loved childhood and wanted for nothing but feel bad for my mum as being a parent went really quickly and she didn't get to enjoy us. She dotes on my children and is always doing things with them.
She's contributed a lot to society through her profession too though so its not all black and white.

That 24% women 1% men thing was referring to the reasons why young people are economically inactive - amongst economically inactive young people, 24% of the women were parents (I assume they meant SAHP) but only 1% of men were. That's reflected the situation amongst the population, not who they chose to survey in the research. I think those statistics were quite separate from the survey of young women's attitudes.

I'm glad I stayed home but unlike previous poster didn't have kids v young. I think starting a career when you're in late 20s/early 30s after having kids young is easier than trying to retrain in 40s. Presumably you know what you want and what will fit in with kids then.

It wasn't really in my social circle to have kids young but now I'm in an area where most do (and stay at home initially or get part time jobs while nan babysits) I can kind of see the advantage.

I actually feel like choosing to stay at home is quite a feminist decision these days. I see myself as rejecting the pressure to have a job alongside having children.

There are various feminist groups that would agree with you. Even some quite radical ones.

I get so frustrated hearing "childcare isn't just the woman's responsibility, it should come out of the fathers wages too". It doesn't make any sense to me unless you have totally separate finances. Whoever's wages it comes out of, as a family, with more than 2 children needing childcare, you're often worse off with both parents working.

I've been a SAHM on and off since I was 18. I do it because I believe it's in the best interests of my children. It makes sense for me to be off rather than my husband because I breastfeed. I also don't think you can "have it all" as it was sold to me as a girl and I don't want the lifestyle that comes with trying to.

Thankfully, I had my children young and got a degree while they were at school which means that I can now build up a career for myself.

I actually feel like choosing to stay at home is quite a feminist decision these days. I see myself as rejecting the pressure to have a job alongside having children.

My only regret is that it has impacted our ability to buy a house.

Whirlwind - plenty of ways into STEM without an IT degree, mine is in Spanish! (I appreciate the only thing stopping you from going after a STEM career now isn't your degree choice, but just mentioning that for the future).

I agree, bungo. For many women, work doesn't pay.

I'm cost me to work whilst my dc were younger but that cost was temporary. I would have been better off on benefits as a lone parent but I chose to work as again that was temporary. I really don't understand the idea that a few years of child care costs mean you can't work. I admit have been exceptionally lucky worked my arse off and always run my own businesses I have never been employed so maybe my drive is different. Child care costs exist get over it and get on with it. The truth is men don't bleat about it so neither should we, if your dp doesn't do his 'share' why have kids with him?

And Bo, unfortunately I have seen lots of young mothers get sucked into MLM scams.

I know that now trib! I just wish I'd known that when I was 17! Would have done a different degree instead of assuming I wasn't smart enough.

I hope that young mothers aren't getting sucked into the epidemic MLM craze with the tag lines of earn lots of money/stay at home with your children/work in your PJs with a laptop etc

Well I can assure you (as I'm sure your DH has) that STEM jobs are not for the brightest of the bright. There are some unbelievably thick people in extremely senior positions, the same as any other industry. (I'm not saying you're unbelievably thick of course, just pointing out there is the same range of competence and intelligence as you would find anywhere).

The programme did briefly touch on the problem the male respondents also reported, which seemed to be that if you came to training late (e.g. you'd gone off the rails a bit the way many late teens/early twenties do) it was very much harder to get back in. All in all the message seemed to be that we're not supporting young people enough to find meaningful work.

Word - personally once we'd sorted childcare, transport etc I would have been earning minus money. DH was not earning a huge amount either, we wouldn't have been able to feed ourselves and pay the rent if I had gone back to work.

It's not about childcare being seen as the women's responsibility, it's about wages being so incredibly low compared to living costs.

But BungoWomble, you wouldn't be paying to work as the childcare costs should be covered by both you and your children's father. It is important that WE don't fall into the trap of assuming sole / main responsibility for our children a including the cost of childcare.

For me, feminism is about choice. I chose to give up a professional career to look after my children in their preschool years. In my experience, those households where two parents work live at the extremes of life - on a knife edge of childcare / household responsibilities etc. That's too stressful for me!

I've been a SAHM since I was 22 because I was then on not much more than NMW (despite being a graduate - was in a caring sector) and childcare costs would have crippled our finances. DH was earning twice as much as a graduate in a STEM field.

I went to an all girls school and am totally capable of doing a STEM job but wasn't supported in doing this by the school as they presented these as only for the brightest of the bright...

And yes it was my career that got sacrificed rather than husbands becuase I was doing public sector, socially useful work and therefore low paid work, while his male-dominated IT work is paid much higher. Plus the public sector is being slashed anyway, my job was going to go sooner or later.

What exactly do they mean by 'choosing'?

You could say I 'chose' to give up work when my second child was born. In reality, the cost of childcare would have been more than my wages. I wasn't on minimum wage, closer to median.

I hear comments from middle class rich people about being 'lucky enough' to be able to give up work, no, down here in the land of ordinary wages I would have been paying to work.

I now would love to go back to work, but since I used to work in the public sector and that has been slashed there is a problem. Also most jobs available are not compatible with school hours so I would need to a) find and b) pay for childcare for both after school and during school holidays. If there is any need to travel I need to factor travel time and costs. That makes a hell of a lot of low paid work barely worth doing.

The problem as the program seems to infer is not women's choices, it is this FUCKING SHIT SOCIETY which makes work not pay any more while the rich get ever richer. And the only answer of the rich and privileged is to blame the poor even more and kick them harder - to the extent of sanctioning state soonsored manslaughter as a price worth paying - while deliberately espousing policies which makes the cost of living climb higher and climber.

Well that's my blood good and hot for the cold morning.