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Out of curiosity, have you read any of Claudia Goldin’s work, or her book “Career and Family”? She explains why the evenly balanced workload within a household often results in a substantial economic penalty. There are solutions but it is not just a matter of public policy as employers would need to cross-train more employees to do each task so that workers could substitute for each other.
The economic value of a half-time worker should be expected to be somewhat less than half that of a full-time worker because some of the employer’s overhead costs scale with the number of employees (headcount) rather than the number of employee hours. That said, the penalty for working less than full time could be significantly reduced for many occupations even though it won’t be reduced to zero.
I finally got around to reading Career and Family. Thanks again for the recommendation. I think her work supports the feasibility of shorter work hours, especially when combined with Elizabeth Warren's The Two Income Trap.
I would encourage everyone who is interested in this topic to read Goldin's book. It's not too long and it is well written. In the meantime, here's an essay from NYT that covers a key concept: "greedy work":
Certain changes would lighten parents’ demands at home, like universal public preschool, longer school days, free afterschool care and shorter school breaks. But the ultimate solution, researchers say, is not to make it possible for mothers to work crazy hours, too. It’s to reorganize work so that nobody has to.
I finally got around to reading Career and Family. Thanks again for the recommendation. I think her work supports the feasibility of shorter work hours, especially when combined with Elizabeth Warren's The Two Income Trap.
I would encourage everyone who is interested in this topic to read Goldin's book. It's not too long and it is well written. In the meantime, here's an essay from NYT that covers a key concept: "greedy work":
I don't really know why anybody has to work crazy hours as is in developed countries. Some people choose to do so for a variety of reasons. Some like the prestige and income of being a top performer. Mostly they are men. Women by and large aren't as motivated by it. Others are just really into what they do and so they do 60-80 hours a week because they're totally vibing with it. Most people don't do that though. I did for a bit and it's totally true. When I was doing trials I'd do 60 hours a week minimum, often 70+. It wasn't for long. Most trials last a few days, maybe a few weeks. The longest I ever did was three weeks. I was completely cooked after three weeks of 60-70+ hours. The money was amazing. The hours were not. So I stopped doing that.
What it really isn't asking for is in fact not changing work so that nobody is forced to work 60-80 hour weeks. It's about using government regulation to prevent people from working 60-80 hour weeks who choose to do so. When I get a client/agency call (I mostly nowadays work through agencies) at 7:00 o'clock in the evening that they need six hours of work done by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning... I say no. There's other people in my field that do do that and they make more than I do and that's totally fine with me.
The issue here is really normalizing two income luxury.
In 1950 the average family had one car and the average house built was 980sqft. Now it is over 2500.
Just like 1950, a 2500sqft home and two cars would very much require an average family to have two incomes.
What must be understood is that a single income family of 1950 was truly really living a life of *gasp* single income
The article here is attempting and failing at comparing today's standards as if they were the same in 1970, for which they are very much not. Today's standards and expectations of what a normal life and residence looks like are wildly above what was normal in 1970.
The article is attempting to make an argument for reduced hours when the real problem is the consumer's own spending. If one wants a wife at home with the kids, 1950s had it figured out and the numbers still add up today to make that happen. Many people still do it.
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