to think dual person 'full time' worker family households should never have become the norm?

[workingdilemma]

Was thinking about the other thread talking about tax credits etc.

Around 40 years ago, as a society we'd reached a point where one person working in a household was enough to support a young family.

Now we've ended up where it's pretty much required to have both working full time to be able to afford the same lifestyle - mainly due to the insane 'cost' of housing.

It would have been far better to have had both people in a couple working perhaps part time to allow engagement with the world of work, and also a healthier work/life balance.

Why did we end up like this? Was it all an orchestrated plan to keep the debt cycle going - after all, you can lend on two incomes now for a mortgage. Lovely jubbly for the debt pushers. Is that why the banks and governments encourage this?

I dunno, but I do yearn for a better way to deal with the problems we're having now then everyone demonising each other.

I can guarantee that there are also single parents in the south east

It's not just a UK/ south of England issue - try living in Sydney or Auckland, you'll hit the same problem (affordability of housing having ramifications for everything else). We lived off DH's salary for 6 month while I was on maternity leave (not paid here). It was fine, we didn't go without but we weren't exactly spending up much (small baby tends to limit your ability to go out for a fancy meal), there was no saving over that period & we had to dip into savings for unexpected expenses - drainage, car problems, boring stuff.

On paper you'd think of course we should be able to live off DH's salary and we could but it wouldn't be the kind of comfortable middle class existence that you would expect for the money he earns because of how expensive housing is. (Plus I don't want to be a SAHP so it's not an issue, but if I did we would need to be quite careful.)

Some people must have had very rich relatives in the past. My grandmother sailed to India to get a job as a servant. She was then widowed back in England with baby and of course worked (otherwise she would not hate eaten). The idea women were always kept by men is just not true and nor is it desirable. Look at how many women on mumnet have fewer choices when they rely on men for money.

Arguing that anyone is being "kept" by anyone else when a couple work in partnership in the bringing up of their family is a pretty offensive view, LotusLight. Or maybe you fail to understand what a loaded term that is... Having to rely on anything can put you at risk of abuse of power, but we all have to rely on something, whether it's a job, the support of friends, a partner, childcare workers, family, our health, luck.... We don't live in a vacuum. Earning your "own" money, if you like to view it that way, rather than earning money for the family, provides you with extra protection from risk where the other things you are relying on in life fail you, but it also brings its own risks and sacrifices. Every person has to consider their own situation and weigh up the risks and benefits and make their own personal calculation. It's just an extra insurance policy.

Actually I think it is wrong so many people don't work. My grandparents worked full time with 2 kids, my parents worked full time with 3, and DH and I work full time with our 3. None of us had/have family locally to help out either. If you want a decent house, a pension, contribute to society and be able to support your kids right through to university and beyond there is not much choice really. I work full time by necessity, in a job I love thanks to working my socks off at uni and never taking career breaks (apart from mat leave).

Im not sure what social class your parents were morethan but mine were WC-F/MC-M and I can assure you that all the women in the working class group WOH but it was never recognised as such .
My Auntie worked in a shop- she took her DC to school, worked, collected them and then went home, cooked dinner, cleared it away and put DC to bed. At 4am she got up and went cleaning before returning home to take her DC to school .She was referred to as a "housewife" her contributions to the family were never recognised at all !
To my knowledge no one sneered at having a working wife but it was never mentioned at all and considered of no significance compared with the man who was feted what ever he did.
The MC side of the family - the women kept home, socialised and took valium to keep them from melting down but the vast majority of WC women did WOH in some capacity but it had to be acceptable ,invisible work.

I have only read about half the thread so far so apologies if this has already been covered. Personally, I think we underestimate the effects that inflation used to have.

In the 80's inflation was mostly over 4%. That would mean that the proportionate cost of your mortgage would fall as you got older. Wages rose with inflation and as they did the proportion of your income that went on your mortgage would fall. 4% per year over 10 years (compound) would make quite a difference.

Now wages aren't rising and mortgage costs stay high.

Two parents working full time but still having next to nothing left over is an undesirable state of affairs IMO. What's unreasonable about thinking that? Especially when the work is stressful, the commute is stressful and there's enormous pressure to pluck and polish our bodies (because we're worth it) and ferry our children to after-school activities, after making junk robots with them.

Lol@the clichéd image of bored,depressed sahms surviving thanks to the Valium. Some actually enjoy it. Most do, actually.
What if I painted an equally clichéd generalisation of wohms as aloof, disengaged parents who outsource all the childcare because they can't be arsed and having kids was just ticking another box on the to do list.
Yeah, offensive isn't it?

Sapat - I'm interested in your definition of work. Is work only work if it is paid? Or is it only work if it is mainly for the benefit of someone unrelated to you? Are you working if you run a scout group? Are you working if you volunteer for a charity? Are you working if you care full time for your severely disabled child? Are you working if you telephone people about PPI insurance, or just being annoying for money? Is work only work if you personally consider it to be worthwhile?

Or is work only work if you would only do it if someone paid you?

If every family consisted of two parents who worked full time, there would presumably be a cost to the 'economy' as there would be no slack in the system to cope with times when the children, elderly parents or childcare-givers are sick or bereaved. The voluntary sector would presumably suffer too.

And the environmental cost must be enormous - greater travel, (communting + flight for holidays),convenience food and drinks bought in all their packaging, loss of the make-do and mend culture; how much will this cost?

"And the environmental cost must be enormous - greater travel, (communting + flight for holidays),convenience food and drinks bought in all their packaging, loss of the make-do and mend culture; how much will this cost?"

I'll admit to the holidays, but I commute by bicycle most days (and train when I don't bike), I don't buy much convenience food, and I'm a dab hand at mending. Two working parents doesn't necessarily mean hours of driving, a diet of ready meals, and environmental apocalypes.

Well done leedy That's impressive. (I can barely cycle at all )

I often think how 'environmentally unfriendly' the whole buying clothes for work, buying coffees, packaged sandwiches, transport to and from work five days a week is compared with spending more time at home (or even in your neighbourhood).

I know there often isn't a choice and I'm not criticising households where both parents have to work full time to make ends meet but it's often struck me that it isn't 'green'.

Otoh I am judgy (blush) about households where both adults work at full time very well-paid jobs and have a load of disposable income. It seems like they're hogging the best jobs. (Although I do realise that many well-paid, enjoyable jobs don't seem to offer the opportunity for part-time work) It seems a pity.

Are you caring for a senile parent and a sick child, and doing voluntary work at the same time as working full time, leedy? Is it possible or desirable for all adults to do full time, paid work? Does "full time" even mean anything? For some people the hours are far longer than for others, even in "full time" work. We can't all live in cycling distance of work. The current status quo does also indicate that a lot of parents do feel the need for extra clothes, extra transport, more convenience food, etc, in order to be able to cope.

Otoh I am judgy (blush) about households where both adults work at full time very well-paid jobs and have a load of disposable income. It seems like they're hogging the best jobs.
Translatable as "Your wife has the job I wish my husband had.

Meechimoo - SAHMs on Valium was a real problem back in the 70s. Thousands of people - mostly mothers and housewives - developed a very unhealthy dependence upon it. Germaine Greer made a very persuasive argument in the Female Eunuch that the massive over-use of Valium was a direct result of highly educated women being unable to fulfil their potential and developing mental health issues as a result.

I think it's less of a problem now because GPs are very wary of allowing people to become addicted to drugs but also because we do have more options, so fewer women find themselves stuck in the SAHM role unless they want to be.

roguantimatter - your comment seems to imply that two halves of a couple shouldn't both be allowed to earn high salaries. I do see that "hogging the best jobs" (the posh term is a "assortative mating" ) increases inequality. But women's wages were depressed for decades, regardless of how much they contributed to their employers, by the assumption that their husbands were the breadwinners and they didn't need the money. We don't want to go back there.

I am judgy (blush) about households where both adults work at full time very well-paid jobs and have a load of disposable income.

I don't know many people like this. At my son's school I was the only mum I knew who worked FT who had a dad around - the other full-time working mums were single - the dad was dead or not around or they were divorced. The other mums either stayed at home or worked part-time. Ultimately it becomes a bit of a status symbol in affluent areas "well I don't need to work because I have a rich husband" and as a working mum you are a lesser person because you didn't marry an alpha male.

At work I knew a few - but most of the women who had kids worked part-time (some 4 days a week or a 9 day fortnight) but not completely full-time. I did know one bloke who gave up work when his wife had their first child as she earnt a lot more than he did. That takes guts. I wouldn't want to be a bloke walking into the witches coven of a toddler group with all the mummies saying he must be a paedophile at worst and a non-alpha male wimp at best. Maybe shared parental leave will shake things up a bit. I'm not convinced though.

I kind of see where you are coming from with your argument but then you could ask why kids from rich backgrounds "hog" well-paid jobs when presumably mummy and daddy could keep them in style. It's because you want to do something for yourself, rely on yourself, have your own money (while accepting that you are not "safe" - employers can sack you, you can get ill and not be able to work etc).

So rogueantimatter if one of a couple applies for a high paid job (defined as?) that one should be asked at interview or on the form Have you an OH and if so how much does your OH earn?

Yes, thank you for the suggestion . . .

This actually happened to me in a job interview years ago. They were sceptical about my commitment because my husband had too good a job.

I like your OP a lot, OP.

And I agree that the current situation is certainly in the interests of many high-up financial institutions.

I think more and more people are starting to feel there's something seriously awry in the way we're all living.

To give you one perspective on this: I'm in my twenties and married with no kids, but my husband does not work for various reasons and is currently studying on a distance learning course. I had a very well paid job in London but with student debt, taxes and the cost of our rent I still found I was facing another five years of renting and saving in order to buy our first house - or rather, one bed flat in zone three, which is about all I'd be able to afford. So we moved abroad, where my husband can study and I can earn a lot more and save to pay my debt and buy a home within the next couple of years.

As a single income family, I found prospects in London pretty uninspiring. I think that if my husband was working we perhaps might have been able to save up for something a bit quicker although he would not have been earning much. I was working very long hours and my salary was high, but because I was in the 40% tax bracket, we would have been better off if both of us was working shorter hours for lower salaries and paying only the 20% tax rate.

I think a big part of the problem was the London housing market as well, which is not representative of the whole UK. But given my job I had little choice but to live in London. Vicious bloody cycle!

My children's father was once denied a pay rise at his school as his wife (me) earned too much, the headmaster said! Works both ways.

Today's Times... and of course it's right...

"Daughters of working mothers enjoy better careers and higher pay than those raised by women who stay at home, according to a Harvard study.

The effect was particularly marked when women worked before their daughters turned 14, perhaps because girls accepted from an early age that a job was a normal part of life.

The study, conducted by Harvard Business School, used ten years’ worth of data from 25 countries and 50,000 adults. The researchers found the daughters of working mothers earned about 6 per cent more than their peers on average, but in the US it was as much as 23 per cent more. They also achieved higher status at work.

One in three daughters of working mothers were managers, compared with one in four of their peers. The effect did not extend to sons, however, who appeared to reach higher salary brackets and managerial positions regardless of their mothers’ working status. The grown-up sons of working mothers were better around the house.

Rebecca Allen, an academic at the Institute of Education, said the study could give “comfort to women who work” and show those who don’t that they must think about how “their role within the household is going to impact their children’s perceptions of what it means to be a woman and a mother”. "