"Working for nothing"

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Probably just me.... but does anyone else get annoyed when a woman in a partnership says 'after I've paid for the childcare there's nothing left out of my wages'? The implication being that childcare is the woman's sole responsibility and that, if she doesn't stay home to do it herself, the cost of hiring someone else to look after the children is entirely hers... even if there is a wage-earning second parent. The conversation then goes on to something like....'I'd be better off if I stopped work'...or ... 'It's hardly worth me going out to work'. As if her contribution is totally negated and her job worthless.

More accurate to say that paying for child care reduces the household income in total. Shared cost, shared responsibility. But no-one ever phrases it that way. Wonder why.

I don't see why saying childcare is a % of joint salary is odd at all. You would do that for your mortgage and other expenditure, so why not childcare?

I wouldn't say odd - mean more it shows just how big a percentage it is if you say my whole salary only just covers childcare.

blackcurrants I don't think most people automatically deduct childcare from the woman's salary. I think they automatically deduct it from the lowerearner's salary. Just so happens that that is usually the woman.

If I were in a relationship where my DP was the lower earner, we would certainly be calculating whether it was worth him working, not me. I am pretty sure that is how most couples would operate... surely?

"I don't see why saying childcare is a % of joint salary is odd at all. You would do that for your mortgage and other expenditure, so why not childcare?"

Because childcare, as a category of expenditure, can be covered by a SAHP in kind. When I break down my household expenditure, there are a whole range of services that I choose to outsource but that I could bring in-house tomorrow if I wanted to, providing there is an adult available to do them. And then there are items of expenditure that don't have that degree of flexibility.

The fact I was earning £100 more a month more than we were paying out in childcare does not mean that I saw it as my role to pay for the childcare (every penny goes into/out of the same pot here, regardless of who earns what) - it did make my decision to leave a job I hated a hell of a lot easier though!

Atm I am looking for work because we need extra income (dh's current job is half his previous salary) - the amount I'd be paid and the amount we'd have to pay out for someone to look after ds2 is hugely relevant to that, but it in no way means it's all my responsibility to sort it out/pay for it.

What minipie and cockadoodledoo said. When deciding whether it's worth it to be a two working parents partnership, the childcare costs notionally do come out of the lower paid parents salary.

At the same time the more the higher paid partner earns compared to childcare costs the less it is worth it for him (usually) to take a shorter hours/lower pressure/ less travel job and do more childcare.

Of course there are more reasons than current income for working - future earnings, career path, interest, social etc.. And more reasons to take an active role in your children's live's from 9 to 5.

I don't think the issue is so much about how you describe childcare costs, but whether it really is a live option for both parents to sacrifice earnings for time at home.

The moral of the story is don't marry a man who earns more money than you if you want an equal partnership, when it comes to parenthood. Even small differences in relative earnings at the start can get magnified by one or two rounds of extended maternity leave, and before you know it it's not worth you working, and not worth him coming home early.

Shameless plug to whole 'nuther thread.

these are the real issues here:

1. women's jobs tending to pay less than men's so that she is more likely to be the second earner than him and hence the one to give up
2. the disproportionate damage done to her career by having kids, due partly to workplace discrimination against mothers
3. the difficulty returning to the workplace after children: you shouldn't HAVE to sacrifice your entire career if you take a few years out.
4. the long hours culture in this country and its attendant assumption that if you don't give 110% you're not committed, and hence the difficulty in making progress as a part timer, so both parents working part time is not usually a viable option
5. the high cost of childcare, which should at least have more tax relief

Sybil,

Yes indeed all those things but none of them really get at the dynamics inside relationships that if you marry someone a bit older than you (as many women do) and a bit better paid than you, or in a higher paid sector than you, and then you take maternity leave a couple of times at the end of it you are much more skilled at the childcare business and they have progressed at work.

I think you can challenge the long hours thing and both work PT, but it will cost both of you in terms of career advancement. At the end of it you may be less well off as a household than if the husband had carried on with high flying role unimpeded by a few years on the slow track, but you will be more equal.

I think that trying to get to the point where having children doesn't effect your career and income at all because employers and taxpayers have made up the difference entirely is unrealistic. Better to be honest that looking after children does get in the way of ambition and try to get fathers to share that role.

For all this talk about the lower earner's salary, I don't think I have ever heard a man say 'oh it just wasn't worth me working after we'd paid for childcare costs'. Yes, there are SAHDs, but this is not usually given as a reason.

I utterly understand why people make this decision, and I am sure it is the right one/unavoidable for a a lot of families. But as well as the hit to the SAHPs career, it also exacerbates family-unfriendly workplaces, as the WOHP never has to take a day off if the kids are sick, doesn't have to do nursery/school pick-ups etc. I work with loads of men who have SAH wives, and it is a bloody nightmare, as they have ultimate flexibility, and assume the rest of us do too.

So people (men and women) who want to work PT, or work FT but still be hands on parents are at a massive disadvantage, which leads to more of them giving up work, and so on and so forth.

"I think that trying to get to the point where having children doesn't effect your career and income at all because employers and taxpayers have made up the difference entirely is unrealistic."

I see where you're coming from, Himalaya, but is it always the case that employers and taxpayers have to make up the difference? A lot of people I work with don't have kids, work 70+ hour weeks and are massively inefficient. I get more done than them in half the time. And isn't it often said that PTers are actually better value for money?

Having said that, I completely agree about getting fathers to share the hit!

the problem is it affects you disproportionately. 6 months maternity leave shouldn't make much difference at all in most careers, not to mention that you will have generally developed your soft skills which will impact on your professional effectiveness (my time management had improved beyond recognition after having kids, and my social skills too, oddly).
Also, there are dynamics inside a relationship but some are related to external issues - like the fact that many (the majority of?) women will marry a man in a higher paying sector because the sectors men tend to work in tend to pay more than the ones where women work....
I agree getting fathers to share the hit is the most direct solution. It's one reason why I think parental leave is a good thing.

I get this all the time. I currentl earn less than we pay out for childcare each month, and people often make (men and women) 'it isn't worth you working' type comments.

Um, it is, actually.

I have an education and experience and want to continue to build on that and have some semblance of a career and financial independence left when my kids are grown up. Not to mention the fact that I will never have a job that pays well enough to cover my childcare and have some left over if I don't continue to build my career.

I don't see what is so hard to understand about that, frankly, and I am often aghast at how unthinking and bloody sexist many people are!

currently

Has anyone actually mentioned the gender pay gap?

It often makes financial sense for the woman to give up work and not the man because she earns less.

I don't work at the moment, because, frankly, looking after my children myself is more important to me than the £200 a month we'd clear after we paid someone else to look after them while we both went out to work.

That money is not worth it to any of us, as a family, not worth it to DH, not worth it to me and not worth it to my children.

I'd like to add to the 'real issues' ..... 'women's needs for self-actualisation through paid employment are seen as unimportant/dispensible/low priority within the relationship once they have children'

Because if the woman in the relationship has a lower-paid job but which is nevertheless a job that she loves, has worked hard at and is very important to her sense of self worth, the idea that 'you'll have to stop work because your salary doesn't cover the childcare' risks trashing a very big part of her personality.

I still accept that there are many and varied reasons why familes organise themselves in a particular way. I'm not advocating compulsory paid employment. I accept that not everyone feels that strongly about what they do for a living to want to continue with it at all costs when they become mothers. But I think we should encourage women -from a feminist standpont - and say that if their work is important to them they should expect to receive the support to continue from within their family and not feel obliged to sacrifice it simply because the household finances might dip.

I agree with your last post Cogito. I'd add 'security' to 'self-actualisation', as well; many women quite reasonably say they wouldn't give up work because they would feel too insecure depending on a man.

Sybil -

I agree maternity leave shouldn't affect you disproportionately but the point is from the employers point of view that means not disproportionately compared to where your career was before, and other people at your work. What they can't judge is whether it affects you disproportionately compared to your partner - which is really what drives the 'it's not worth working' conversation.

So if you take off 6 months and your partner gets a promotion in that time it is hard to catch up (at the same time they may be more motivated to go for the promotion at that time because of the growing family). Do it 2 or 3 times and it is hard to catch up with your partner even if your own career has not been set back that far. Plus the fact that mat leave is officially for the new baby but each time you take it you also take on more of the responsibility, knowledge and relationships around the older children.

I don't think there is an easy answer, but it does seem wise to marry a slacker or at least someone less ambitious than you are. And be willing to sacrifice a certain amount of material wealth for greater equality in your household. More equality outside depends on more equality at home.

Equal parental leave is the answer, but the tricky bit will be getting men to actually take it.

Hmm, I fear this thread may have started as a result of my thread on becoming an SAHM . If so, as a feminist myself, I do apologise for any offence caused!

As others have said, it's about the 'lower earner' being the one who stays at home and also my job is making my utterly miserable .

I take your point completely though and dh and I both agree that our income is shared and our expenditure is shared.

All the points about working for self-esteem/career progression, etc are entirely valid but when you sit in the car park crying before work each morning something has to give .

As a mum of two boys I am concerned about the traditional roles they will see, but dh is very hands on as a dad and a home-maker so I'm hoping we can combat that in other ways.

Interesting discussion though.

I think my question would be ( you don't have to answer this kittens, it is a generic point), are women exhausted - for example crying before work, because they expected to give their all at work, then in effect do a full second shift on the domestic front. Which makes SAH,appear to be a more viable option.

It just angers me that women are being forced to address the symptoms of inequality, lower pay and expectations on the domestic front by taking an option that is in reality a huge risk to themselves. My observation in a corporate career is that a 6 month or 1 year maternity leave has minimal negative career impact. However, if a woman takes more than 2 years off, moves to flexi time without managing it really aggressively and proactively or is visibly, and daily the person to do the nursery/school run without sharing with her partner or using a childminder, then her career is screwed

I also notice that men including the lower earners, typically refuse to take that hit or risk their future careers.

It's just a simple math thing that people compare things by change or the delta. The don't look at the whole income and work out the overall change as, in this case, the man's income is static - the delta is the woman's wage. So the delta is just down to the income and outgoings of the woman's wage. That's it. People do the same when working out whether to buy 3 for 2 in a shop of one product against just buying 3 of a slightly cheaper product. You work out which is the best deal for those items. You don't factor in the cost of the rest of the shopping basket as that is unaffected.

Yes, it's always labelled as the woman's delta as it's mainly women how take time out of work to look after kids after birth. In the sole case of a man who did the same thing, then the exact same analysis would be taken on his salary and the gender of the question would be male. Nothing to do with feminism at all - just the context of the party who is involved in the delta.

A more burning issue for me is the way that loads of couples, married or not, don't pool their money in general - it's his money and her money, and "I owe her this", "I'll pay you back later". That's what I find strange as hell.

I disagree with the math though.

The calculation should not be based on Y1 when baby is born it is Y1+3 when baby goes to school.

On a simple level, during nursery years salary 1 pays domestic and life bills, salary 2 pays only childcare, so arguably, you can afford to lose it.

However, get to year 4 and you get the following:
Family with SAHP have salary 1 only.
Family with 2 WOHP now have access to salary 1 plus salary 2, plus any future rises on both.

In the long term it is a material difference. And in the couples I know when the lower earner is male they rarely give up work.

Snow, no, not the case here. Dh shares domestic/childcare responsibilities equally including drop off/pick up, bedtimes, cooking, cleaning, laundry, night wakings etc.

Unfortunately my boss is a bitch hence the stress.