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Paying women to stay at home
[Expletive deleted]![[Expletive deleted]](https://us.v-cdn.net/5018289/uploads/userpics/203/nRDMYEY2NQBVO.jpg)
The mediocre doctorNorwayRegistered User regular
The mediocre doctorNorwayRegistered User regular
Edit: The thread title describes the de facto (and unwanted) effect of a policy that is de jure paying whichever parent (if any) chooses to be at home with their young children.
This is a spin-off from the Dem primary thread.
Watching children his hard and time-consuming. Everybody who has tried agree on this. It is also an undeniable fact that women do the bulk of this work, even in the developed world.
Not everybody can or want to use daycare, and watch their kids at home instead. Again, staying at home with the kids is mostly done by the mothers, and is unpaid labor.
Should this labor be compensated or subsidized by the government?
Here in Norway, we've done that since 1998. Parents of children not enrolled in government-subsidized daycare between the age of 1 and 2 years (until 2012 1–3 yrs) can get a cash subsidy (konstantstøtte, lit. "cash support"). Children below the age of 1 are not covered by kontantstøtte, as they are covered by other programs (specifically, parental leave).
The program was instituted by Kristlig Folkeparti, the religious-conservative party when they held the PM.
The program was and is highly controversial. The OECD has recommended kontantstøtta is removed. Two key issues with kontanstøtte:
The alternative, which we have, is government-subsidized daycare. This allows women to enter the workforce, helps immigrants integrate into society (and natives to be used to living around and with immigrants), and is better for all children. But all this is undermined by kontantstøtte.
I am personally strongly against kontantstøtte, but I know others ( @spool32 ) is in favor. In any case, it is a policy whose merits (and lack thereof) should be both discussed and understood.
Edit: Clarifying the thread topic:
Paying parents for the (otherwise) unpaid labor of watching pre-school kids sounds good on paper. However, it comes with significant downsides and de facto entrenches traditional gender roles. I think this is bad.
Is paying for the labor that is child-rearing worth those costs? How should we do things?
My suggestion: Paid parental leave, part of which is earmarked for the father. Then highly subsidised (or free) daycare. No payment to parents who keep their kids out of daycare. (If we remove the kontantstøtte, Norway would in fact broadly have my preferred solution; we have all the other stuff already.)
Edit: Current system in Norway:
This is a spin-off from the Dem primary thread.
Watching children his hard and time-consuming. Everybody who has tried agree on this. It is also an undeniable fact that women do the bulk of this work, even in the developed world.
Not everybody can or want to use daycare, and watch their kids at home instead. Again, staying at home with the kids is mostly done by the mothers, and is unpaid labor.
Should this labor be compensated or subsidized by the government?
Here in Norway, we've done that since 1998. Parents of children not enrolled in government-subsidized daycare between the age of 1 and 2 years (until 2012 1–3 yrs) can get a cash subsidy (konstantstøtte, lit. "cash support"). Children below the age of 1 are not covered by kontantstøtte, as they are covered by other programs (specifically, parental leave).
The program was instituted by Kristlig Folkeparti, the religious-conservative party when they held the PM.
The program was and is highly controversial. The OECD has recommended kontantstøtta is removed. Two key issues with kontanstøtte:
- It is a subsidy of traditional gender roles. Fathers are equally eligible as mothers, but it's almost always mothers who end up staying at home.
- It hampers integration of immigrants. Immigrant mothers stay at home (even more so than natives) supported by kontanstøtta, and their kids never go to day care and socialize with natives (or immigrants from other cultures) or learn Norwegian.
The alternative, which we have, is government-subsidized daycare. This allows women to enter the workforce, helps immigrants integrate into society (and natives to be used to living around and with immigrants), and is better for all children. But all this is undermined by kontantstøtte.
I am personally strongly against kontantstøtte, but I know others ( @spool32 ) is in favor. In any case, it is a policy whose merits (and lack thereof) should be both discussed and understood.
Edit: Clarifying the thread topic:
Paying parents for the (otherwise) unpaid labor of watching pre-school kids sounds good on paper. However, it comes with significant downsides and de facto entrenches traditional gender roles. I think this is bad.
Is paying for the labor that is child-rearing worth those costs? How should we do things?
My suggestion: Paid parental leave, part of which is earmarked for the father. Then highly subsidised (or free) daycare. No payment to parents who keep their kids out of daycare. (If we remove the kontantstøtte, Norway would in fact broadly have my preferred solution; we have all the other stuff already.)
Edit: Current system in Norway:
Parental leave: 49 weeks divided in 3: 19 weeks reserved for the mother, 19 weeks reserved for the father, 11 weeks to split as the parents see fit. (This can be increased to 59 weeks total by getting less money.) Some of the mother's weeks are taken prior to birth. In almost all cases, the de facto split is mother 30 weeks, father 19 weeks. Because gender roles.
From 1 year old, the child can be enrolled in government-subsidized daycare. Or, the parents can receive cash support instead (i.e., paying to support regressive gender roles and worse integration of immigrants).
From 6 years old, the child must start in school.
From 1 year old, the child can be enrolled in government-subsidized daycare. Or, the parents can receive cash support instead (i.e., paying to support regressive gender roles and worse integration of immigrants).
From 6 years old, the child must start in school.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
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At the same time I definitely prefer a program like this over not having it. There’s a big discussion to be had over what takes priority in terms of government funding but this would be one of those things I think I’d be okay with.
One societal problem with this is that often men are getting paid more and this system encourages the person who earns less to stay home. It's the problem a lot of paid parental leave systems have, too.
Yes, but having paid parental leave is still much, much, much better than not having any because it plays into gender pay imbalance.
That doesn't seem like a problem that can or should be addressed from a stay at home gets you pay type system.
Not paying for daycare seems like the superior of the two options societally too. Parents are better than day care as a whole. I'd rather just give both parents a year off at their current pay based on their current projected income for the year.
It also seems like one of those programs where the people it benefits most do not need the support. It's not generous enough to replace an entire income, so the people who need 2 incomes still need to work. So it basically serves as a sweetener for people who can afford to single income it, and is only critical for that narrow band where they need like 1.2 incomes to get by.
I'm not following the logic of "we'll pay your income to not show up for work while taking care of your child" is not immediately better in all situations here. Walk me through it.
And if we're arguing social ills of the problem, not having stay-at-home pay means the stay-at-home partner (since they will exist anyway, and per the OP are mainly lower-income women and immigrants) will be financially 100% dependent on the bread-earning partner. It wasn't an issue for my mom since my parents have a healthy loving relationship, but we all know it can be (and is) a major problem for a lot of women.
I personally am a big believer in the bonds between parents and kids, that daycare just can't replace. My family was lucky in that mom had a very flexible job that she could bring me into the ice skating rink and have people watch me (and my bros when they came around), but others definitely aren't that lucky. I just want to see people be free to make their own choices and there being safety nets for those options.
I'm still not even sure where I land on the concept but it shouldn't be limited to gender.
As the OP, multiple studies, and common sense show, while it can (and usually does) say "parents", in reality it is "women". So I'm ok with the thread title as it stands. Let's look at the reality of the situation head-on, rather than hide it behind PR and ideals that are not applied in practice.
I'm aware it's primarily women. But if the proposal is to pay them and only them, then it will only further cement that concept.
Same thing with parental leave or basically anything else I've ever seen studied on this. If you give people the option, they will usually stick with default gender roles.
Generally these systems don't simply pay your income but a percentage of your net income or a lump sum. This generally benefits medium to high income households more than low income households.
A side effect of getting paid tax exempt percentage of net income is (at least here in Germany) that you don't pay into retirement funds, so that screws over the parent that takes care of the child later in life.
I'm not arguing against the idea of paid leave, but the implementation generally leads to a reinforcement of gender norms and does not benefit people that would need it the most enough.
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No one is proposing the abstract concept of paying only women.
The real-world tangible impact of the proposal is that primarily women are paid.
And what they do with it is one of two things:
Yes, the father could stay home. No, he does not.
There's a reason I the thread title is paying women to stay at home.
Sure, the reality is that it's overwhelmingly women who stay at home to be parents. But let's say that the thread title were passed as law. Now you've enshrined the disparity that you recognize. By stating "Paying women to stay at home" You're normalizing that it is to be women who stay at home and supporting a status quo that you seem to agree needs to be changed.
Personally, rather than pay for a parent to stay home, I would prefer we better subsidize and standardize day care so that all have access to adequate day care.
49 weeks divided in 3: 19 weeks reserved for the mother, 19 weeks reserved for the father, 11 weeks to split as the parents see fit. (This can be increased to 59 weeks total by getting less money.) Some of the mother's weeks are taken prior to birth. In almost all cases, the de facto split is mother 30 weeks, father 19 weeks. Because gender roles.
From 1 year old, the child can be enrolled in government-subsidized daycare. Or, the parents can receive a cash support instead (i.e., paying to support regressive gender roles and worse integration of immigrants).
From 6 years old, the child must start in school.
Jesus Christ, the thread title is not a law nor a proposal for one, it's an observation of reality brought forward as a topic for debate on an internet gaming discussion forum.
And I'm done replying to this pointless tangent.
A thread on the inherent sexism within Norway's specific instance of this is a pretty niche topic.
What you need is a more widespread reshaping of how we view raising children and it's role in society. To not have raising children be a thing that permanently retards your lifetime career progress or a side-project people are just expected to pay for out of pocket in both time and money.
But, and this has been tested on a national scale, the father must be "forced" to take it. The father's part has to be reserved for him and him alone, or he will not take it.
That's not what the title proposes.
And as it stands in America, quite a few policies provide parental leave for women specifically. The Navy's policy specifies the mother for receiving four months of leave with the "secondary caregiver" receiving only two weeks unless they're willing to jump through hoops to get some of that time off transferred. This only adds barriers to changing the norm.
Again, I understand that it's primarily women that currently stay at home. One of the ways to change that is to stop specifying just them.
I don't know why that's so objectionable for OP and a few others here
yes, if you're going to enshrine this into law, make it gender neutral so if mom happens to have a better paying job then dad can stay home
I work in public service and I'm nearing the end of a term of years; my wife works a good corporate job
The title should be changed. Nobody wants to deal with this poor articulation of the policy poisoning the well
not only is it women only, it's "paying women to stay home [re: childcare]" as if they're staying home to do nothing
Richy is right. This is not law, nor am I proposing that it should be (quite the opposite).
The law (in Norway) is that parents can choose to receive money in lieu of enrolling their kid in daycare.
De facto, for parents who choose to receive it, the mother stays home.
The point is that this doesn't actually change anything. You can stop saying it's just women who stay at home but it's still gonna be mostly just women who stay at home.
And I'm not trying to be repetitive here, but to point out that the difference is not there in practice. Making child-care benefits non-gendered is conceptually a step-forward but functionally an essentially irrelevant change. And that fact is a huge fulcrum on which these issues turn.
That said, there are limitations to the system. Even with subsidies it's still expense (I'm looking at 25$/day or so in my case), and for families with a lot of kids (and let's face it, families with a lot of kids are usually low-income and immigrant families) it can become a major household expense. Spaces are limited and finding one is difficult, never mind finding one that is geographically convenient and won't require you to drive a detour in traffic halfway across town twice a way. Daycare schedules may not fit with your actual work schedule if you don't have a traditional 9-to-5 job (and even if you do, once you take into account driving to and from daycare). And there's just no substitute for parental love and bonding in the yearly years of life.
So no, while I'm happy my child is in daycare, I can't fault parents who choose not to go that route.
I don't agree that the language we use to describe ideas doesn't change anything. But I ain't the OP so *shrug*
My first thought was "this is dumb that's just encouraging gender norms even more" so right off the bat I was confused as to why, in 2019, we're still doing stupid shit like this.
The issue is there are a lot of concessions men and women take in response to gender norms. Women are less likely to jump into STEM or become surgeons because they expect later in life to need a job that has a lot more leeway for parenting. That is why, often times, they're the ones who stay home. It's not 100%, of course, there are plenty of men who would be willing to stay at home too. Are we addressing all this or just talking about women staying at home and taking care of kids and how we can encourage them to get back to work?
Perhaps we should make better OPs rather than be combative about it.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I set a stopwatch when I went out this weekend with my 12-month old and I won't lie it felt good knowing I had 2:05:00 banked when I get home
It's a change that would have to be made but it's not sufficient to actually change anything functionally.
And I'm pretty sure the point of the OP's title is to reflect this fact. That "parental leave" is just "maternity leave" unless you actively force it not to be.
But the OP is explitly talking about how it a subsidy for parents and not just women but enforces the gender norm of the stay at home mom and that is where the title comes in?
Work, along with contributing to society more generally, is a social experience where you interact with other people (generally). Its a way to interface with people outside your household, often of different age, demographic and social situations.
If someone wants to stay at home to take care of their offspring, great. It is definitely work. But so is gardening and I don't expect to get a farm subsidy for it. So is cleaning my home, but I don't think I should get a subsidy for it. If anything, we want to encourage the opposite. Food is more efficiently grown on farms. Paying someone to clean homes creates jobs. Labor specialization is central to how the economy works.
Parenting works a little differently, granted. Family is very important to many people including myself. Some people will stay home even without an economic reason. But I don't think there's a reason to create incentives to encourage people to stay out of the workforce. If anything, subsidies should exist to provide child care to those who couldn't afford it otherwise so they can choose to participate in the workforce if they so choose.
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The results the OP is referencing are pretty well established and well known within the discussion on this kind of policy as far as I've ever seen. It's a big deal in terms of discussion of supporting and compensating parents for parenting because it really kinda slams the door shut on a lot of the conceptually simpler solutions to the issue.
One of the few ways to get around these issues that immediately presents itself I think is to force men to stay home with their children. And even that might not solve the career-related issues or their gender imbalance.