Lack of family work/life balance policies

[rowan]

This article about gender equality in relationships is somewhat depressing, but not surprising given the backlash we've been seeing. Some of the problems highlighted specifically are:

* lumping 2 decades of people into one group "millenials"
* the younger half of those growing up during the dot-com bubble burst and financial crash
* complete lack in the U.S. of work-family balance policies

A recent study of 22 European and English-speaking countries found that American parents report the highest levels of unhappiness compared with non-parents, a difference the researchers found is “entirely explained” by the absence of policies supporting work-family balance.

Compared to the U.S., Europe is doing a lot better. And, those who can pull off a two-income household do better than those who don't on a number of measures of marital satisfaction.

However this article doesn't explicitly discuss income inequalities in this country, which I think is a huge portion that we must also have on this discussion. It is there implicitly to some extent (e.g. the dual-income comment, but I'm not sure they're necessarily taking into account the very low income dual earner incomes where that's barely enough to survive. Will have to read more in depth.)

Sum up: We really need proper parental leave for both parents in this country. We also seriously need to address this "work for free" mentality crap we've got going on. (<-- this last part is my own addition here, fwiw)

(Note: the headline is, as usual, clickbait-y, even for the NYT.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/opin ... wives.html

[melsbells]

Yet more evidence not to blame the world's ills on the older generation (the false hope that things will simply get better as people die off instead of doing something about it). I don't think I've ever cared more about parental leave than after I experienced it. All parents deserve proper leave. But other than touting the high economic ratings of countries that have large social well-fare programs including extended parental leave, I'm not really doing much to promote the actualization of taking better care of residents in the U.S.

[Taurwen]

I still blame the older generation and can't wait for them to die off lol

I wonder what all the actual questions were that they asked high school students. My partner and I have a fairly "traditional" set up in that we have one main breadwinner and they make most of the financial decisions. Except that's me and he stays home with the baby. I bet if you asked.
"Would you rather be an relationship where the man does all the working and the woman can stay home and look after the domestic duties" you get much different answers than if you ask
"Do you think it's better to have one working partner and one domestic partner?"
"If so, should the working partner always be the one who makes the most money? Always be the man? Or should each partnership decide for themselves who should keep working and who should stay home."
Not to mention
"would you prefer an economy where it's possible to have one working partner and still be able to eventually own a house and provide various activities for your children?"
Heck, even if both my partner and I worked we'd probably never be able to pay for our kid to get into hockey (not that we would want him playing hockey, but still).

[Aum]

There is one demographic to blame and that is the aristocracy, especially the ones from the baby boomer generation. The middle-upper and upper classes have less use to be serviced by a thriving middle class anymore, so they are reabsorbing the wealth. The solution is to cut health care, retirement benefits, government supports, and an early death.

The older generation is being shafted because the financial security they were promised isn't delivering, so they have to work longer to make ends meet. The younger generation is screwed because they are inheriting a dying system and ecological disaster, all while being told to pull up their bootstraps.