How American women got stuck in the kitchen

[yallerdawg]

The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook shows the cost of having no federal paid leave programme


IN 1986, “American Women in Transition”, a study by the Russell Sage Foundation, described the vast changes then afoot in American society. Some twenty years previously, it says, in what sometimes reads as old-fashioned language, few mothers had jobs; by the early 1980s “three fifths of wives with school-age children were working outside the home”. This extraordinary change was reflected in the popular culture of the 1980s, from movies like “Working Girl” and “9 to 5” to books like Helen Gurley Brown’s “Having it all”.

Back then, America led most of the rich world in terms of the proportion of women who worked. In 1985, 70% of American women aged between 25 and 54 were in the labour market (either in work or looking for it). That compared with 57% in Australia and 59% in Germany. But the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook, published this week, shows how these countries have caught up with America and overtaken it. While the proportion of “prime age” women in the labour market in the United States is now 74%, in Australia it is 76% and in Germany it is 83%.

*****

Rather, America seems to have fallen behind because it has failed to introduce policies that make it easier for women to stay in work after they have had children. In its report the IMF says that the “striking difference” between women in European countries and America “can be attributed to the more supportive policy changes in Europe.” Its authors single out two policy areas in particular: access to affordable care for both young children and old people and paid parental leave.

The difference on paid leave is especially stark. European countries have introduced and expanded laws that require companies to give parents paid time off after the birth or adoption of a child. Employers in the EU must offer a minimum paid maternity leave of 14 weeks; many countries mandate for more than that and also provide paternity leave, thus reducing companies’ reluctance to employ women of childbearing age. America has remained almost the only developed country to have no national paid parental leave at all.

*****

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Parental leave is needed for both parents, mother and father.

I've been working since age 14, earlier if you count babysitting. I don't have any money saved up and I've worked for decades.

It's unconscionable to make a woman specifically choose between working and/or taking a limited amount of time to recover from childbirth and/or raising an infant.

[wasupaloopa]

2. Inflation in the 70s along with stagnant wage growth meant it took

two incomes to get by.

Title IX of the civil Rights Act helped also. When I started college in the 70’s women only did archery and bowling in school.

The pill also helped make change

[spooky3]

3. One bone to pick:

"Some twenty years previously, it says, in what sometimes reads as old-fashioned language, few mothers had jobs."

"jobs outside the home" and

The authors should report numbers for white mothers and mothers of color separately. For mothers of color, they were much less likely to experience the Norman Rockwell lifestyle of the 50s and 60s, and likely always worked. And women without children had fairly high rates of labor force participation all along, though the the opportunities and pay were much more limited than now.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Excellent point.

[ehrnst]

8. And most women did do something to earn income once their children were school aged

But that work is so devalued, it wasn't really even considered a "job":

Selling Avon, Tupperware, magazine subscriptions, Sarah Coventry Jewelry
Childcare in their home
Housecleaning
Taking in ironing
Mending or altering clothing
Doing the accounting for family businesses

[spooky3]

10. Yes. I dont know if they accounted for this work in this study.

[bluescribbler]

5. The last sentence in the linked article

" In 2016, Donald Trump became the first presidential nominee to tout a national paid family leave plan. His daughter Ivanka is now working with Senator Marco Rubio to try to build Republican support for it."

I'm not holding my breath.

[Wounded Bear]

6. Ivanka and Markie-boy?

Now there's the A-team for you.

[erronis]

7. Is it because certain analysts saw working women as dangerous to their status quo?

I won't be the first to suggest this, but women tend to be more open to discussion and involvement with employees, co-workers. While men tend to be more authoritarian and totally clueless about inter-personal relations.

Having worked for 50 years in male-dominated industries (defense, IT) I can say that the slow inclusion of women into the managerial ranks has been a great positive. However, not positive for the existing old-line male-network bosses.

Same for any other minorities - threats to the white/privileged/male status quo.

[BigmanPigman]

9. Paid leave, universal health care and paid education all go together

as "socialism". Oooohhhhh, scary, bad word! You don't want that!

Countries that pay higher taxes than us get free (or else very inexpensive) social services in return. European and Nordic countries are a prime example. They may pay 35% tax while we pay 25% (half of that goes toward the US military). They receive a lot more in return for their tax dollars than we do and free college, medical care, and parental leave is only part of it.