How would you feel if the standard household was single income again?

[Omydearehert]

Not necessarily the man working. How would you feel if a single income was enough to live off of and became the standard again?

Dp and I would love to both work fewer hours. Neither of us would stop work though.

From a point of view of society, I think we'd see fewer women working, which would mean we'd loose a lot of potential across various industries. I think the pressure to be a sahm would increase which wouldn't be great.

On balance, I'd rather have a standard 4 day working week.

@Mummyoflittledragon

To add, I told him our house is 10 times dh’s salary.

Bet the interest rate isn't 16% though.

Single income is the norm if you have disabled children.

@RobinPenguins

Great, I suppose, as we would still both go to work but presumably have far more disposable income. Neither of us want to stay at home.

But it would have taken some kind of horrendous period of deflation/house prices crashing/recession to get to that point though and I’m not sure it’s worth it.

This really!

I would resent not having my own money. We do not have joint accounts and so I'd have to show every single thing I was spending and I just don't feel DH needs to see it all (hope that doesn't sound bad. It's not having secrets it's just that I can spend my money on what I want)

I'd love it. I'd tell my DH to quit A&E because it's killing him.

Neither of us want to stay at home though. We both like our jobs & are good at it.

them!

If you won the lottery, would you still work?

I actually would

it would mean parents could raise their children instead of nurseries and schools in some cases.

I have used childcare when I'm not working 😱

No thanks

Ecstatic!

Ours is a single income household. We've only got me working.

And it's tough. I earn a decent salary, but it's clear that for a good life with luxuries you do need both of you working.

We're stuck, because DH has chronic health conditions now that mean he can't work - and I earn enough that he can't claim benefits. Waiting to see if he can get some PIP but dubious. Even if he qualifies, it will hardly allow us many luxuries.

Tbf there are jobs that force it as a norm. My husband was a bus driver when our son was born and I honestly felt like a single mother sometimes. Roster covering every possible combination of hours, always different days off, holidays and days off cancelled at the short notice, late from work due to traffic etc. My son wasn't coping with nursery very well so I was stuck with being SAHM for quite a while. The single income wasn't enough to live on, mind. We had child tax credits as a top-up and spent our savings.

@Dontforgetyourbrolly

Single income as a married man with all the opportunities afforded to someone with no childcare responsibilities versus single income as a single mum who can only work limited hours and/ or pay for childcare are 2 very different things. So it kind of does matter who is earning that income I'm afraid.

Yes, exactly this. And it would be used to get women out of the workplace again, though I see worrying dogs of that on here — this idea that women have only been forced recently into the workforce because families can’t live on a single (implicitly make) income.

Treat your own career and earning power as something you wish were an optional extra if you like, but don’t invent noxious, false retrospective justifications for the gains of feminism in working against the marriage bar, the pay gap, discrimination against women in the workplace.

Splendid! I would vote for more single income families. It would release massive pressure on the adults, allow children to be peacefully delivered/collected from school, allow someone who 100% cares, to be around to help with homework, clubs etc and would dissipate alot of oneupmanship with material possessions. The single earner needn't be the mum and also, its never too late to go back to work after looking after your family.

@ERFFER

I’d love it. Woman were tricked into the workforce by telling us it was empowering - but really all we did was have to pay someone else to raise our children, feel guilty about working /staying at home and make it so households could nt survive without it and boosted the economy

If they cared at all, and didn’t mind woman doing bulk of child raising PLUS working, theyd at least give us better childcare and /or mat leave pay

B*stards…

See this is nonsense. Who exactly tricked you into the workplace? And would you have happily stayed at home from the moment you left school, hoping some man would come along and support you, or are you just saying you would have stayed at home, and been delighted about the marriage bar and discriminatory hiring practices, your inability to draw down a mortgage etc?

Who is this ‘they’ who forced you into the workforce and made you do the bulk of the childcare?

You should always cut your cloth to suit your budget. We manage a very decent lifestyle on under £15 k a year.

You should always cut your cloth to suit your budget. We manage a very decent lifestyle on under £15 k a year.

How do you pay rent or a mortgage & have enough left over for a decent lifestyle?

@ERFFER

IllegibleSquiggles

We know from the past 18 months that woman were the ones leaving their jobs or reducing their hours to deal with childcare ?

I am educated with a decent job- I’m not “waiting “ on some man to come and save me ?
( and this is very rude - it’s perfectly ok to want to stay at home ) the point is: we were supposed to have the choice.

Do some reading about how working mothers ended up IN the workplace. You’ll find it very little to do with Feminism.

I ask again, who made you do this?

And I'm perfectly well acquainted with women in the workplace -- for the vast majority of women, for the vast majority of history. women were always already IN the workplace. Working mothers have usually been the norm.

Feminism campaigned for women being able to train for professions, being admitted for degrees, not being discriminated against in hiring practices, being fired while on maternity leave, for the removal of the marriage bar, against the pay gap, against harassment in the workplace -- in essence for women to be equal at work.

If you haven't grasped this, then I really can't help you there.

If you can’t GRASP how paying another woman ,nearly your full wage , to look after your own children is ridiculous: then I can’t “help” you either.

My granny didn't work & she had 8 dc, she had paid help.

I’d be happy if I could just find enough padding in our salaries for us to 1 afford to have the children (IVF) and secondly to take the full maternity period off with them. Maternity pay needs to be made liveable. I work for a multi billion pound company and they don’t offer more than SSP.