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

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

Hi just wondering if anyone else was listening to Womens Hour today?

There was a really interesting article on younger women choosing not to work.
I was busy (meant to be working) whilst listening so I didn't give it the attention it deserved. I think they were saying that young women are choosing more any more to stay at home with their kids.
Seems they have seen their mums trying to have it all / do it all and decided it's best to stay at home.

Im sure that the lack of well paid part time work and stupidly expensive child care is having an impact. Anyone else hear the broadcast and was hopefully paying attention unlike me

[Fugghetaboutit]

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.

[BungoWomble]

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.

[Alibabsandthe40Musketeers]

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.

[tribpot]

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.

[Catphrase]

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.

[absolutelynotfabulous]

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.

[Grimarse]

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.

[almondpudding]

Excellent post Womble.

[BungoWomble]

Oh good . I had to double check it was relevant, I have a few sore points at the moment

[lighteningirl]

I have never had any sort of cushion everything I have I have worked for Womble! sometimes choosing to be worse off than benefit claiming friends in order to be better off in the long term is not a cushion it's a decision.

[BungoWomble]

All I meant by cushion is that you must have had sufficient savings to cover negative income for a few years. Either that or you'd be in debt.

[Fourormore]

Well no, if childcare is more than you are earning, then you need a cushion to make up the shortfall, which I presume was Womble's point.

[BungoWomble]

Poorer people work too, or are you not aware that most people claiming benefits are now in work? It's top up benefits like tax credits.

[lighteningirl]

The cost of childcare meant working was a bad choice vs benefits not totally uneconomic possibly bad wording on my part.

[Gisla]

My mum had kids later in life (late 30s) after having a career and travelling. She ended up a single mum on benefits with nothing, and the advent of the computer meant her skills were way out of date by the time she tried to get back into work. She died in her 50s and it really brought home how little time we have. She always wished she had had kids earlier.

I had my children relatively young compared to my mum, I had my first when I was 21. I worked full time until I had my second at 25. I'm quite aware I can't have it all without having to let either my job or my children slide for a while (and neither could dh) so I'm a sahm until it becomes more viable for me to go out to work. I want to concentrate on my children and I'd like to hope that I have learned from my mum's mistakes.

[leedy]

I personally hate the idea that a woman who wants to have a full time job and children at any life stage is (in what I can only describe as "sneer quotes") "having it all", and that this is clearly an entirely crazy/unrealistic thing to want or present as an aspiration because only the most ludicrously privileged women (or terrible uncaring mothers who don't want to spend time enjoying their children) could do it.

I totally agree that childcare costs are outrageous and there are numerous financial pressures that prevent many people who want to work from working. I also agree that the work that carers in the home do should be valued, and that many women work in jobs that are underpaid. However I will continue to be irked about it until men regularly have conversations like this and talk about how they "knew they couldn't have a job and have children and do both properly - something had to give!". My children aren't just my responsibility, they're my (male) partner's as well.

[Fourormore]

I wasn't sneering.
I don't think my DH "has it all" either. He misses out on so much with our children and he knows it. This is his sacrifice for our family. My sacrifice is not having an established career already.

I also don't generalise out. If others feel that both parents can work full time and don't miss out on family time, that's great, it just isn't the route for me.

[jorahmormont]

I'm 21 and have a 21-month-old DD and can't imagine anything worse personally than being a SAHP. I love my daughter to bits and love the time we spend together but I never had any desire to be a stay at home parent. DP enjoys it, however, and if either of us ever has to be a SAHP it will be him because he adjusts to it better. I go stir crazy.

[leedy]

"I don't think my DH "has it all" either. He misses out on so much with our children and he knows it. This is his sacrifice for our family. My sacrifice is not having an established career already."

That's fair enough - it's just that in so many families, like yours it's the male partner who (automatically/"because that's how it is"/"because he earns more") makes the "misses out on family time" sacrifice and the female partner who (automatically/"because that's how it is"/"because she earns less") makes the career sacrifice, and so the traditional pattern of man as provider and woman as carer continues. I don't accept that it's because women are somehow naturally drawn to lower paying jobs, or are more naturally suited to childcare (except in the very early exclusive breastfeeding months), or naturally just care more about staying home with their children (personally I would have gone stark staring batshit as a SAHP).

I'd be much more interested in a programme about a growing trend of young men deciding that they want to choose to be stay at home dads, or a growing trend of couples sharing childcare responsibilities and career hit. That would mean something was changing.

[almondpudding]

Why is it better for women if more men are SAHPs?

[unexpsoc]

Why is it better for women if more men are SAHPs?

Because it is better for both men and women if more (in this instance I am assuming hetero-) couples are having conversations which lead to balanced views on who could stay at home and who could work, taking other factors into account other than outdated societal expectations? This would be indicated by a change in the ratios of fathers to mothers staying at home?

[unexpsoc]

who could work = who could perform paid work before I get snarked at. Yes, we all make mistakes.

[almondpudding]

How does that make people's lives better? I understand the value of shared care, but see no actual advantage in more SAHDs.

[unexpsoc]

How does that make people's lives better?

Because you would have more choice rather than being forced into something, and that by being able to exercise that choice your life would be better - liberty leading to greater utility as Mill would have it.

[Fourormore]

but see no actual advantage in more SAHDs.

Why not?