Women's Wages Are Rising: Why Are So Many Families Getting P

[Shooby]

www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/womens-wages-are-rising-why-are-so-many-families-getting-poorer/359991/

[The Captain]

I knew the answer even before I read the article, but from the article itself:


"Mainly, to paraphrase Hanna Rosin, the end of marriage and men in working-class and poor communities across the nation, coupled with the fact that maternal labor-force participation has plateaued since the 1990s. That is, a dramatic retreat from marriage, declines in men’s employment and income, and a leveling off of maternal labor-force participation have all combined to limit the income available to lower-income families, and to offset the increases in women’s income documented in this new report. "


As much as some may not like to acknowledge it, it take two to make a baby and it takes two to provide decent support to a baby.  The dramatic rise in single parent households pretty much explains it all.  Add to that the fact that when you have two adults trying supporting two households, instead of one (if they were living together) it is really a surprise the overall family unit's quality of life has decreased?

Yes, it is possible for one parent to provide a decent living for their family, but as we can increasingly see, that is the exception, not the norm.

Other posters have been blasted for saying this, but women really need to be much more choosy about whom they decide to pair up with.  If a man doesn't have a steady job and doesn't seem to be good family material, why would you risk making a baby with him?  (And yes, it applies equally to men as well as women)

[Deleted]

Apr 3, 2014 7:15:51 GMT -5 The Captain said:

I knew the answer even before I read the article, but from the article itself:


"Mainly, to paraphrase Hanna Rosin, the end of marriage and men in working-class and poor communities across the nation, coupled with the fact that maternal labor-force participation has plateaued since the 1990s. That is, a dramatic retreat from marriage, declines in men’s employment and income, and a leveling off of maternal labor-force participation have all combined to limit the income available to lower-income families, and to offset the increases in women’s income documented in this new report. "


As much as some may not like to acknowledge it, it take two to make a baby and it takes two to provide decent support to a baby.  The dramatic rise in single parent households pretty much explains it all.  Add to that the fact that when you have two adults trying supporting two households, instead of one (if they were living together) it is really a surprise the overall family unit's quality of life has decreased?

Yes, it is possible for one parent to provide a decent living for their family, but as we can increasingly see, that is the exception, not the norm.

Other posters have been blasted for saying this, but women really need to be much more choosy about whom they decide to pair up with.  If a man doesn't have a steady job and doesn't seem to be good family material, why would you risk making a baby with him?  (And yes, it applies equally to men as well as women)

Cap, I have to agree with you.  My mom was one of the exceptions, by the time she retired she was making over six figures, she provided materially for me as needed, but because of that she wore herself to the bone and we had fights and fights.  She flips out when stressed and honestly working on average of 60 hours a week plus a kid with no really support is extremely stressful.  This was not good for me as a child nor her as a working adult.  Honestly, I would not be as stable except that she sent me to Catholic school which gave me a support system.  I really feel that the idea of it taking a village to raise a child, and we definitely need more than one person.

[swamp]

Maybe the wages aren't rising at the pace necessary to keep up with inflation?

[mizbear]

I disagree. In the past, women (and men) had been scrutinized for leaving abusive, unfaithful, addicted or other "trouble" relationships. Society has created this false reality that kids are not going to turn out well being raised by one parent, when the truth is, being raised in an abusive, distrustful or loveless home is not a better fate.

I tend to believe that there are other factors involved in this.

[The Captain]

So you think the fact that more families are poorer today has nothing to do with the fact the there are more cases of only one parent providing support as opposed to two in the past?

 ok - what other factors do you think are involved in the economics of the situations (because that is what the article was about...)

This was not a discussion about what you think are false realities (which is a relevant topic for a different discussion) but about the causes of family poverty.

[mizbear]

No it doesn't. It does have to do with things like inflation and outsourcing and offshoring. Look at how many jobs- that paid the bills and required little to no formal post-secondary education are no longer available in the US. They have been sent overseas where they can pay someone a fraction of what someone here in the US would make for the same job.

Bills are going up, the number of employable parties is going up and pay rates and number of jobs are not.

Furthermore, the population is increasing steadily. Baby boomers are hitting retirement age but can't afford to retire, college is mandatory for most types of employment, but there are no jobs.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Daycare isn't cheap. For two kids if we use full time daycare it eats up almost all my paycheck. We're not "poor" but we are certainly in the red cash flow wise.

Then salary wise I was on a pay freeze for the first two years. DH didn't received a raise at all at Tyson in the 5 years he worked there. Our salaries were not keeping up with the costs of day to day living. They are now fortunately, we're approved for raises and DH is working a much better job.

Even if you stay home it's going to cost you eventually. Gone are the days where you could retire nicely on your husband's pension alone and then live off that when he died.

While I might save on daycare costs by not working for 13 years I am going to cost us when it comes to retirement. We'll be poor later and that could potentially cost our kids as well if they chose to try to support us.

When people ask me why on earth we keep working with daycare I tell them it's b/c I don't want to end up eating cat food in retirement and being a burden to my kids.   The investing and compounding I'd lose in 13 years is much more valuable to me than the savings I'd get from not utilizing daycare.

So we're "poor" now so we hopefully won't be "poor" later.   Others might chose the exact opposite. Having kids is a pretty freaking expensive venture no matter how you slice it. Not only do you need to look at short term costs you have to try to project costs way into the future.

[The Captain]

So the fact that in the past even if one parent was working the other could be relied upon to provide childcare, meal planning, home economics (not bad words) etc and now if you have one parent working they have to pay for childcare and everything else on their own has nothing to do with why families have less?

ok...

If your facts were true then it would apply equally to ALL households, not just those with children.  However, according to the latest census statistics that I could find single households with children in poverty are at 21% and 41% when headed by male and female persons respectivelly.  When the household with children is headed by a married couple, the poverty rate drops to 11%.  The general houshold poverty rate is less than 7% for married households and over 17% for unmarried households (without children).   

Economics are not the only reason to stay in a marriage, but to claim there are no economic benefits to marriage is not supported by the facts.

www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/publications/dynamics09/2b.pdf

[swamp]

In some marriages, the economic benefit may outweigh the emotional, physical, and mental advantages of staying in the relationship. It is now more socially acceptable to leave those relationships. Which goes back to "pick your partner carefully" although sometimes you can be as careful as anyone and still have the relationship/partner go bad.

[mizbear]

Parents being married and in one household guarantees nothing.

[The Captain]

We're not speaking of guarantees, we are looking at the question as to why more families (ie adults with underage children) are living in poverty, what is so hard to understand about that?

You keep throwing these statements out there but don't really support any assertations or adress any of the questions raised, are you trying to be a troll or do you have a valid rebuttal to the information presented or the questions asked?

Otherwise it's just your wild assed opinion unsupported by anything other than what you think is reality.

[mizbear]

There is no need to be rude.

It is not scientific to apply values such as marriage to economics.

Also, my opinion is just as valid as anyone else's. I have lived poverty level and below. Being married can truthfully have financial disadvantages too. No one looks into all of the ins and outs of these figures. There are too many variables to put a lot of stock in the statistics.

[Deleted]

Apr 3, 2014 13:44:21 GMT -5 mizbear said:

There is no need to be rude.

It is not scientific to apply values such as marriage to economics.

Also, my opinion is just as valid as anyone else's. I have lived poverty level and below. Being married can truthfully have financial disadvantages too. No one looks into all of the ins and outs of these figures. There are too many variables to put a lot of stock in the statistics.

Why do you say this?

[mizbear]

gin- The reason I say this is skews the stats and research by adding something that is not scientific.

It's a value judgment.

That is my issue. We have enough value judgments made everyday. Stick strictly to the fact that we have too many people living at or below the poverty level, particularly children and seniors. The fact that jobs are being sent to foreign countries where the work is done for a fraction of the cost and our prices keep going up.

[The Captain]

Apr 3, 2014 13:44:21 GMT -5 mizbear said:

There is no need to be rude.

It is not scientific to apply values such as marriage to economics.

Also, my opinion is just as valid as anyone else's. I have lived poverty level and below. Being married can truthfully have financial disadvantages too. No one looks into all of the ins and outs of these figures. There are too many variables to put a lot of stock in the statistics.

 

I consider mis-direction and unsupported statements directed as fact in any discussion to be rude so it would appear we both can be perceived the same way.

Also, an opinion which is unsupported by any facts is not valid, it's just wild speculation (as I've stated before).  Many people are of the opinion vaccines cause autism, however the facts and research clearly debunk that so the opinion is not valid in that case.

No one has ever disputed that being married can have financial disadvantages (more mis-direction), however you have yet to provide a supportable rebuttal to the data given that supports that the increase in single parent households is the #1 cause of the increase in family poverty.

How would you support your assertion that you can't tie marriage to economics where there is clearly a link?

[The Captain]

Apr 3, 2014 13:57:43 GMT -5 mizbear said:

gin- The reason I say this is skews the stats and research by adding something that is not scientific.

It's a value judgment.

That is my issue. We have enough value judgments made everyday. Stick strictly to the fact that we have too many people living at or below the poverty level, particularly children and seniors. The fact that jobs are being sent to foreign countries where the work is done for a fraction of the cost and our prices keep going up.

... and that is the only reason or just your guess?  Do you have any support (hint - there's an even bigger factor in play than offshoring that you haven't touched on - which is why I believe you're guessing).

[mizbear]

I am not here to argue. I have an opinion of the article. And as I said before, I will not have my opinion de-valued just because you don't agree with it.

I happen to live in a very real world, where outsourcing jobs, high costs of most items- tangible and intangible services and items- and a small job market- are all very real considerations.

The job market does not care if you are married or not. Inflation does not care if you are married or not. Yes, some employers prefer to hire those with less "attachments" or responsibilities, but it's a value judgment. The cold hard truth is poverty level is poverty level and it really doesn't matter anything other than you are living on or below it.

In an idyllic world, one parent could stay home with the children (the woman according to conservative, traditional views), there would be no divorce, no one living in poverty except by choice, etc. It doesn't work that way. To say that an economic situation is caused by a value is questionable. My economic situation has generally been better when unmarried because of the traditional views on women and marriage. I will not say that part of that is or is not geographical. Just like traditional views on women in the workforce. 

It's great if you can have advantages to being married and a one income, two parent home.  All I am saying is that, that is not modern reality.

I also take issue with the article because it, although it may not be the intent, serves to lessen the value of the parent as a person when they are a single parent or unmarried. Unspoken presumptions about the morality and character of others are raised by this article. Presumptions that no one has the right to make because they are not there. They don't know why someone is a single parent or divorced.   

[Deleted]

Apr 3, 2014 15:22:38 GMT -5 mizbear said:

I am not here to argue. I have an opinion of the article. And as I said before, I will not have my opinion de-valued just because you don't agree with it.

I happen to live in a very real world, where outsourcing jobs, high costs of most items- tangible and intangible services and items- and a small job market- are all very real considerations.

The job market does not care if you are married or not. Inflation does not care if you are married or not. Yes, some employers prefer to hire those with less "attachments" or responsibilities, but it's a value judgment. The cold hard truth is poverty level is poverty level and it really doesn't matter anything other than you are living on or below it.

In an idyllic world, one parent could stay home with the children (the woman according to conservative, traditional views), there would be no divorce, no one living in poverty except by choice, etc. It doesn't work that way. To say that an economic situation is caused by a value is questionable. My economic situation has generally been better when unmarried because of the traditional views on women and marriage. I will not say that part of that is or is not geographical. Just like traditional views on women in the workforce. 

It's great if you can have advantages to being married and a one income, two parent home.  All I am saying is that, that is not modern reality.

I also take issue with the article because it, although it may not be the intent, serves to lessen the value of the parent as a person when they are a single parent or unmarried. Unspoken presumptions about the morality and character of others are raised by this article. Presumptions that no one has the right to make because they are not there. They don't know why someone is a single parent or divorced.   

There have been studies that show married men make more than unmarried men, just as unmarried women make more than married women.

[nutty]

Is it that parents are not going into well paying jobs? Just happy to get by?

[mizbear]

gin- True. What I am getting at is the market itself, unemployment, etc- don't care. Just like poverty, illness, death... The market statistics don't care.

But three somethings I have been trying to stay away from with this:

(As I said, I am not trying to cause an argument, but you and I have batted subjects around before and you know I sometimes (often) have my own unique take on things)

1. Pay disparities are wrong between equally trained and qualified individuals. This article shouldn't even be an issue from that standpoint.

2. The source of the statistics. Not saying the census bureau is wrong, but statistics brought through by an independent researcher or scholarly researcher with relevant comparable data would hold more weight. There are too many variables...

3. Articles like this, whether it is their intent or not (this one I don't feel it is so much the intent, but there are other similar articles that do), tend to start wars that wouldn't ordinarily start between people who may ordinarily have a civilized conversation- Why? Because it is a heated topic. And this variety of heated topic is just what is wanted to keep people from working together. Why would it do that? Because we as Americans value our individuality, but also (despite anything the media would have you believe) our beliefs.

[mizbear]

nutty- Where I am, the jobs aren't there unless you are in specific skill sets and then the pay may or may not be there.

[The Captain]

Apr 3, 2014 18:38:30 GMT -5 @anne81 said:

If you're worried about the income gap then you are probably also worried about the gap in marriage. College educated, employed individuals divorce at far lower rates than lower income individuals and their children receive the benefits of two incomes and the attention of two parents in one household.

OTOH - I'm not in general seeing people who are worried about the marriage gap and child poverty suggesting solutions that would help alleviate it like subsidized childcare, affordable college for low income families (merit aid appears to be increasing the income/life outcome gap), more trade schools for those that choose not to go to college, high school education that actually is worth something to an employer, changing drug laws that disproportionately impact minorities and the poor, wrap around services for single moms, mandated sick leave, longer school years, school funding that is not tied to local property taxes, etc.

People are practical.  They are not going to marry partners who will drag them down economically in general.  They may date them, keep children by them, but tying themselves to them legally is a whole 'nother ball game.  If we want to make people attractive to marry and then close the income gap then we're going to have to provide a lot more supportive services for people who haven't done everything right from day one.

I live in the metro Chicago area.  We have subsidized or free childcare with free busing for the headstart program, community college is free if your income is below a certain level, there are free (100% no questions asked) pre-natal programs available where the nurse will come to your residence and property taxes and per pupil spending that is in the top 25 percentile in the nation.  Our community college has programs in several trades including HVAC, welding, commercial trucking, automotive technology, building management and maintenance just to name a few.

Yet we still have growing rates of HS dropouts and persistent poverty.  There are outreach programs at all the local HS stressing the importance of staying in school. It doesn't seem to be working.

What more do you suggest be done?

[mizbear]

Those programs aren't available everywhere. Great programs, but not available.

[mizbear]

anne- I agree, but that would make too much sense!

[Sum Dum Gai]

The war on poverty is even more misguided than the war on drugs. No economic system in human history has ever gotten rid of poverty. The closest we've ever come is socialism, which only works in the short term, and the US is nowhere near going down that road.

You've all played Monopoly. In a capitalist system money concentrates in the hands of a few and everyone else is left broke.

[Deleted]

“Matrimony is flourishing among the rich but floundering among the poor, leading to a large, corresponding ‘marriage gap.’”

Among the rich is it more common to have a SAHP who is fully dependent on a very high earner? I don't see SAHP's leaving the spouse. Sometimes they get traded in on the trophy wife/cougar toy, but in this neighborhood they are working hard to retain the cushy life.

At lower incomes maybe the only way to get by is to stay unmarried and qualify for assistance programs?

[Shooby]

Once women flooded the marketplace, then wages adjusted accordingly to that new reality so that it now does take 2 incomes to live a different life.

[Deleted]

That is not accurate. Do you mean that purchasing power increased due to 2 income households so price of goods went up? That is not accurate either.

Are you just making things up to have an argument or do you actually believe what you post?

[NastyWoman]

Liliy, you may want to read "the two-income Trap".  It has some very nteresting information arguing just that.