Get the latest tech news

Economics and Homemakers

As some of my readers know, I have been working for the past two years on a book about homemakers.

She argues the government should not support families with a stay-at-home parent because moms and dads at home don’t provide any economic benefit to wider society. This can result in the breadwinner earning more solo than the family income if both parents are in the workforce, but less committed to their jobs (because they both have to spend significant time on the daily hands-on care of their kids). It contains my favorite turn of phrase on the topic: “In reality, the stay-at-home mother is already a full-time professional in a $4.7 trillion industry.” As I have written elsewhere, some analyses find that “unpaid caregiving” is worth around 20% of America’s gross national product.

Get the Android app