Are we morally obliged to work ?

[Justthisonce12]

630,000 economically inactive people in the UK not claiming benefits. Early retiree’s I guess.

Hunt plans to tackle this and encourage work force participation to allow businesses to grow. ie cheap labour I presume ? But also preventing a brain drain.

Will be interesting to see how he plans to address this.

I think there are a lot of early retirees who think or feel as though they’ve earned their keep and thus the right to sit back and claim their pension, when the reality is that the tax and NI they paid during their lifetimes didn’t even cover the services they and their family used, let alone decades of a state pension. Which isn’t an attitude I’ve much time for
I don’t agree with this, my household have paid over 100k per year in tax and NI for many many years, money that has probably gone towards benefits and child benefits of other ‘workers’. My DH and I are living off private pensions that we have contributed too. There aren’t any early retirees living off a state pension.

What an odd question? DH can work because he has a partner (me) who picks up the kids. We could swap roles but I’d only earn half his salary and it wouldn’t pay the bills.

I suppose millions of other families manage because they have relatives who pick up the kids, or the school has after-school clubs, or they live in an urban area with lots of childminders. There isn’t a single childminder who collects from my DCs small village school.

It helps because it keeps her in the workforce until she no longer needs childcare. The cost is only crippling for 3-4 years until school starts. But that break from employment ruins her future prospects. Subsidising childcare for 3-4 years allows her to keep working for the next 30-40 years.

What an odd question? DH can work because he has a partner (me) who picks up the kids. We could swap roles but I’d only earn half his salary and it wouldn’t pay the bills

Why would you only earn half his salary? What is the difference between your career path and his? Why is his unaffected, and his earning potential higher than yours?

Or their dh, who should also be responsible for childcare, works flexibly so they can do their share.

Or they do shifts/nights/weekends.

Suggesting it's impossible to work if you have kids in school is nonsense.

Especially as you've identified a gap in the market. Set yourself up as a childminder.

Because some careers pay more than others? He’s a dentist and earns a fortune. Whereas I used to work with teenagers at the local college, which was rewarding but didn’t pay a lot. Even before we had kids he already earned double my salary. And it doesn’t matter how long or hard I work, it’s simply not possible for someone in my job to match the salary of a dentist.

He’s a dentist. He isn’t going to be working shifts or nights. His job isn’t flexible. This is literally what I was talking about earlier - professional jobs aren’t offered on a flexible basis. Sharing childcare would mean him leaving dentistry and getting a shitty flexible job, in order to allow me to also get a shitty flexible job, and we’d be significantly worse off. If one partner has a professional career the other can’t, because professional jobs aren’t available on a part time flexible basis. And this is the major problem.

Many years ago I worked with a guy whose side hustle made him as much if not more money than his actual job. He said he worked for social reasons. I always thought good for him.

I think the biggest issue is people who are too sick to work and the NHS is not sorting them out.

Thinking especially of Long Covid and CFS/ME.

I meant you could work nights or weekends.

I work full time in a professional career. Dh also works full time. We make it work.

So no, its not true that if 1 parent works in a professional career the other can't. Your dh is choosing not to prioritise childcare or you working. Its a choice

You are spot on with that! Not everyone has friends/relatives who provide free childcare. We’re lucky to have a night a year with a babysitter. Couldn’t utilise free childcare at 3 as there were no spaces and providers were closed for a time due to covid, if we paid, it was more expensive than my wage so the best option was to stay home with one wage pennies over threshold and no benefits. Now school age and it’s not much easier.

While I do believe the system should be a safety net and not a long term choice (with exceptions for health, disabilities and carers), I do see how this becomes the only option for some people. This country makes it too hard for many families to just exist. Ultimately, we shouldn’t be in a society where we still struggle to live on 2 wages, where kids miss out on much need time with parents etc. Nobody should be too poor to have a choice, we have progressed from all women staying at home to not being able to decide for ourselves and that isn’t good progress IMO.

I fall into this group, disability that makes it hard to get a job, but not on benefits. did a few years doing crappy online self employment jobs that didn't pay anywhere near min wage, dh has a wage that enables us both to live now, so that's what we do, took the stress and pressure off me.

We are not rats in a laboratory cage or contestants in the Hunger Games (or even IACGMOOH).

We will not get through this better by sniping and scapegoating and adding to the fragmentation of society.

The instinct under pressure may well be to point the finger, blame Petra to make it feel easier to pay Paulette but in the end we all need to understand, have compassion and imagination and stand alongside each other to demand the system and society that will support us all better.

Why would you only count your wage towards childcare?

And why discount all the longer term benefits of working?

It's not a question of "only counting the wife's wage towards childcare"

It's a sum:
If DH earns X
DW earns Y
Childcare costs Z

Then if X is > X+Y-Z then it makes no sense for Y to work., unless there are other reasons.

I know one family who cut costs and dipped into their savings because they had twins and their childcare care costs massively outstripped the wife's earnings for three years. They felt it was worth it because Y's potential future earnings.

It wouldn't have been worth it for us. Firstly, DH's job involved international travel - with the best will in the world you can't "make shared childcare work" if the partner whose turn it is to do the school pick up is in the USA, while the children are in the UK.

Secondly, DH's earning potential was massively higher than mine, so it made sense for his career to be our family priority, and our kids would have had very limited family life if we both worked the sort of hours DH works.

He’s a dentist and earns a fortune

So could cover childcare to enable you to work / upskill.

I think you may have missed my point. Choice is something many people don’t have.

Firstly, childcare wasn’t an option for us, we have a handful of local providers and they had no spaces. I didn’t have a car and live rurally with virtually no public transport. I meant that even if there were spaces and we could’ve paid, why would I want an entire wage plus a chunk of my husbands to go just on childcare.

Also, what about the long term benefits of staying at home with children (works both ways) and all the time we wouldn’t have had together.

I was actually lucky enough to pick up some wfh work, and when I say lucky, what I mean is, I was in the right place at the right time, it wasn’t a job being advertised and I wouldn’t have got it had I not been where I was that exact moment. Although this was not a wage and not regular enough to be relied upon.

It’s not as cut and dry as “we made it work”, that’s a very narrow view often made by someone who relies on their own opinions as facts. The ability to make it work means you were in a better position than many people to start with.

Longer term benefits of working? What are they? There really are not any unless you are going to advance up the ladder.

I didnt miss your point. Women often say there's no point in them paying out their whole wage in childcare, like its only their cost/responsibility.

I'm not aware of any benefits of staying home with children long term.

I'm not sure I'd agree we were in a better position than others. Maybe our priorities were just different.

Better income once kids get free hours/are in school. Not having to try to get back into work after a long break, not losing skills and career, keeping paying pensions/NI. Benefits to mh. Financial independence.

@antelopevalley

@Topgub That sounds like someone in a decent job with talk of pensions and mental health.
Loads of jobs are bad for people's mental health and childcare costs during school holidays and afterschool can still make work not worth doing. No way would I work unless it was for money.

Well almost everyone works for money.

There is a cost benefit analysis in most things. That should include long term. Not just short tern. Not completely relying on the state or anyone else should always be a factor

I don't give a shit about the middle-class ideal of not relying on the state. I don't, but not because of ideology.
But I will do what makes economic sense. If that means working I will do it. If that means claiming benefits I will also do that.

And only poor people are expected to work and not actually make any money from it.

I'm not middle class 🤷‍♀️

I'd have fully subsidised childcare available to all of possible.

I dont think the poor should work for 'no money' (it could be argued that if you can afford to fund a sahp on 1 wage you're not poor anyway) but saying all your wage (always the womans and never the mans) will go on childcare and think thats always a bad thing is short sighted at best