What would happen if....

[Wheres Toto]

New question? What % of full-time working women would desire to leave the workforce if they new it would not cause financial hardship to their family?

By hardship I meant, needs would be taken care of but not all wants.

Wants being expensive clothes, expensive cars, pedicures, eating out regularly, ect...

 

Same answer I gave above - I think it would be a decent percentage of those with young children/babies but a much lower percentage of those with kids in full time school.

[freethinkermama]

If I meant all, I would have said all. Why even state 70% if I meant all? I will admit grammar is not my strong point. If you would like for me to analyze an orchestral score, I can. Different people have different gifts. So be it.

 

I know many women who would love to be able to stay home and can't. Though it would be a fun thread.

 

I believe most women are FORCED into the workforce and many would love to be home with their dc.

 

 

I belive most men are FORCED into the workforce. My husband would certainly prefer to stay home and do wood working and enjoy making music. Oh, eventually he'd want to go back to work and use that Ph.D. he earned, but not being forced to use it would be nice.

 

Same for me and my Masters degree. But, then again, I got my degree so that I could use it. And I'd like to put it to use again when my children are older. I would certainly be forced to work if my husband wasn't already.

 

Instead, he's forced to earn money to keep us afloat.

[KidsHappen]

Well, I would no longer have a pdoc, a message therapist or a hairdresser but I could still get my Starbucks. I don't know why but I almost invariably get a male barista at my local store.

[eaglei]

To be blunt, our generation has had freedom to choose what we want to do with our lives. The women who are working out of the home are either working b/c they want to or b/c they have to. I can't think of any other reasons...and I don't think it's wise to deny either group the opportunity to work for a living.

 

:iagree:

[HappyCrazyMama]

Did the OP edit her original post? After reading the replies I thought I missed the part about women not having any choices, not being allowed to work, perhaps not even being allowed to get an education.:confused: Why was that the conclusion jumped to? Perhaps they all wanted to become SAHMs.:D Maybe even hs. When I went back and reread the OP I didn't see anything about women being forced to leave, why jump to that conclusion, why the anger?

[Miss Sherry]

70% of women, who hold full-time jobs, left the work force?

 

 

Just for fun-what do you think would happen?

 

:lurk5:

There would be more jobs for men who are currently unemployed which would mean that families who depend on the man of the family to support them would have an income = less government assistance needed. However, there are plenty of women who must work because they are single or have a husband who is unable to work for some reason. If that 70% is women who do not have to work it could be good for society as a whole. But if it is including women who must work, of course that would not be a good thing.

Some of the women would be happy to be home if they had a choice. Some would be very unhappy to lose their jobs if they had a satisfying career. It would be a mixed bag, of course.

 

Actually, as far as divorce rates go, I think divorce rates would go down. I think they did go up in the past when more women entered the work force.

 

But now that women have been in the work force in larger numbers for so long, I do think there would be a time of psychological adjustment for women who would stop working. They would feel a sense of loss and need to learn to find fulfillment in other ways.

edited to say : for some reason I was thinking along the lines of 70% of women being forced to leave their jobs. It seems to me that most anyone "forced" to leave a job would not be happy about it. Unless, of course, it is a woman who wants to stay home anyway. Naturally all of the woman who want to work are going to be unhappy about it if they are forced to leave their jobs. We'll, I guess my thoughts are not much different, even thinking it is forced job loss. I still think some would be happy about it and some would be very unhappy about it. I suppose in some groups divorce would go up, but in some it would go down. But my guess is it would go down more than it would go up.

I think it would be much better for children to have an adult at home full time. If the parent is involved in their child's daily lives I think the child will do better in every way - academically, socially, spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically. When children grow up to be healthier and better equipped for adult life all of society benefits. I believe it is better for society in general for Moms to be home with their children.

Edited November 5, 2010 by Miss Sherry

[Rosie_0801]

But now that women have been in the work force in larger numbers for so long, I do think there would be a time of psychological adjustment for women who would stop working. They would feel a sense of loss and need to learn to find fulfillment in other ways.

 

 

 

And they would have to learn to feel ok about being completely dependent on their husbands. That takes some of us years. :) And husbands would have to learn to be ok about supporting an adult who is capable of supporting herself. I don't imagine all would be pleased about that. I doubt my hubby would have stuck around if I'd told him upfront that I was intending him to support me for 20 years of our life together. (I didn't lie, I had a surprising change of plan :tongue_smilie:)

 

Why are we resurrecting this thread anyway? Bored on a Friday night? Too tired to read anything intellectual but are out of silly romance novels because tomorrow is library day? (Or is that just me? :tongue_smilie:)

 

Rosie

[freethinkermama]

Did the OP edit her original post? After reading the replies I thought I missed the part about women not having any choices, not being allowed to work, perhaps not even being allowed to get an education.:confused: Why was that the conclusion jumped to? Perhaps they all wanted to become SAHMs.:D Maybe even hs. When I went back and reread the OP I didn't see anything about women being forced to leave, why jump to that conclusion, why the anger?

 

I thought it was an interesting series of responses too, and this is why I think this happened.

 

1. The question presupposes too much. Why are 70% of women leaving the work force? A couple of possibilities: one, they are being forced to; two: they no longer need the money. One is magical, the other is scary. (Of course, the other is, what if 70% of working women were laid off--that's terrifying!)

 

The question touched nerves because there was the underlying assumption (born out by the follow up questions) that 70% of women shouldn't be working outside the home. Why would this question be asked otherwise? If it were less divisive, and there were less public opinion about it, it probably wouldn't even have come up. (What if 70% of people got tattoos? What if 70% of all people tinted their car windows?) The fact is, there's already a feeling about this topic. (After all, from some of follow-up responses, we see that women are already taking jobs away from men. Working women=BAD!). Also, the conservative view from the most predominant religious sentiment on this board, would be that women belong primarily inside the home anyway and women who go to work are hurting their families.

 

 

2. The question is sexist. It is. Why didn't she ask "what is 70% of men decided to stay home?" or "what if 70% of dual-family income homes chose to become one-income homes where someone was always home to . . do whatever?" The answer? Because women should be in the home, it's not explicit in the question, but I think it's obviously there. That's why the prickling from much of the respondants, I think.

 

The follow-up comment also smacks of sexism. "Women are FORCED" to work outside of the home. Why? Why aren't men Forced to work outside of the home? It's because, in the OP's paradigm, men are supposed to work outside of the home, and the women are supposed to work inside of it. Poor women, they're "forced" to work outside of the home, while it's really the "responsibility" of the men. That's the difference. She's already pre-supposing there's a moral difference between which gender "gets to" or "should" work outside of the home. I think that goes to prove some of the objections many people had to the original question.

 

It may already be apparent that the OP is opposed to women working outside of the home, though not explicitly in the original question. We have more reason to believe that is so by her follow-ups, showing that the concerns of the respondants were valid.

 

3. For some other examples.

 

What if 70% of black people moved to Africa?

 

What if 70% of gay people decided to move to gay only communities or cities. (Places where they could feel more comfortable, yanno?) Or, Christians for that matter? What if 70% percent of them went to live in Christian only communities where they could avoid the persecution and the influences of a non-Christian world?

 

What would happen if 70% of anyone (not me) magically decided to do the things I think they should do? :)

 

Do those raise your hackles? Mine too.

 

We are a board predominantly of women, and we are still made to feel ashamed of working outside of the home, even by our own gender. Or that we're doing it primarily to have "expensive clothes" and "eat out regularly" (the OP's follow up questions)

 

However innocent, and hypothetical, the question may have been, it carried so much baggage and sexism in it, you can't be surprised for people being angered/frustrated/hurt by it, digging out those problems and pointing to them.

 

I'm actually glad you brought it up because I had been wondering about that too, and it's been an interesting thing to ponder.

 

T.

[fairfarmhand]

The GDP would plummet. The US would drop many immigration barriers in a desperate attempt to prop up the economy and fill huge gaps in the workforce. Tax revenues plunge at the same time that there is a massive increase in the need for public assistance. Female-headed families become hungry and homeless in droves, and unfortunately there are very few social workers or professionally-run charities to assist them because the women who dominate those professions have all gone home.

 

Your husband will almost certainly get a big raise, but he'll also almost certainly be pressured to put in 80-hour weeks as his company tries to function with so many fewer workers. Don't expect to see him much. Don't expect his increased wage to improve your family's standard of living, either - in such a dramatic labor shortage, wages for jobs like supermarket checker and gas station attendant will have to go through the roof if those positions are to be filled, and so the prices of basic goods and services will skyrocket. Lots of US jobs will simply move overseas where there is plenty of cheap labor.

 

Hospitals are plunged into chaos with virtually no nurses; all elective procedures and routine care will need to be canceled while nursing training programs are hastily set up to train some of the new male immigrants in nursing. The death rate for hospital patients soars. Because things like mammograms, Pap smears, and colonoscopies are halted due to the need to prioritize on emergency medical services, the cancer rate climbs. If you have a relative in the hospital, be prepared to go and stay with that person yourself 24/7 to provide personal care, prepare and serve meals, administer meds according to the doctor's instructions, etc. If you need to go into the hospital and don't have someone able to sit with you, I hope you survive. There are no more midwives. Your options: unassisted childbirth at home or a virtually unattended (no L&D nurses) hospital birth in a criminally understaffed facility. Maternal and neonatal death rates soar.

 

At first it seems that elementary schools will have to close, but then they triple or quadruple class sizes so that male middle school and high school teachers can be spread out to cover all the grades. Parent volunteers fill in as best they can. Special needs students suffer the most; the vast majority of OTs, speech therapists, etc. are women, and those aren't jobs that can be taken over by volunteers.

 

By the time everything shakes out and we return to some degree of economic stability, 30% of American workers are permanent residents or new citizens born in a foreign country. The huge influx of immigrants is hard to assimilate; they're so critically needed that they must be welcomed, but U.S. culture returns to the atmosphere of New York City in 1900. Language barriers and lack of experience continue to depress the economy. There are nurses in the hospitals again, but they only speak rudimentary English and most of them are brand new. So the death rate doesn't exactly go back down again.

 

And, by the way: women who wanted to work and/or needed to work will not universally find joy in being a stay-at-home wife and mother. Especially not given the increased economic stress caused by soaring prices and the increased workload caused by the scarcity of service workers.

 

"Just for fun?" It would be a social and economic nightmare. An utter nightmare.

 

I do agree with this, and I am a huge proponent of mothers being at home with their children. Our society could not have such a huge shift overnight without major economic and social repercussions.

 

(I am a conservative Christian so I run in circles where my line of thinking wouldn't be popular,) The 1950's was not the first era where women stayed at home. For centuries women have been at home, yet it was not quite as rosy a picture as many would like to paint. There was horrid poverty (what happens to widows, orphans and wives and children of deadbeats? what happens to the girls who in a moment of foolishness became pregnant out of wedlock?) and no safety net for disability, death or injury. People pipe up the the churches an volunteers would pitch in and assist the needy, but while in the aforementioned situation there might be man (or woman) power, you would still need funds to purchase food, clothing, rent, etc. to provide for those needy.

 

I do think that as a nation we have spoiled ourselves into believing (many have anyway) that 2 incomes are absolutely needed for necessities and to just get along; however I am sure that many here scrape by to have a mom at home on far less than their peers. Yet, we can (many of us anyway) testify to the struggle, the worry, that something, as simple as an emergency room visit could happen and set our families back a couple years. And I do see the troubles that 2 income families have to deal with too. That is not a rosy picture for the family either

 

Most of the mom's in the workforce that I know would LOVE to be able to stay home; many of them have no choice; their mortgage payment demands that they work. They see no other way to provide for their family. But for it to be required.... It think that would just be WRONG. I plan on doing something other than twiddling my thumbs when my kids are raised!

 

A more likely scenario in our economic times would be that men were laid off in large numbers (I haven't looked at any numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised it that is already the case)