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I have read somewhere that the biggest blow to feminism and women equality was when they started to be eligible for mortgages. Until then, one income was sufficient to support the whole family (it has to be) and nobody could touch that, because the system would break down fast. But since that, two-income households started to be standard and very quickly required. Nowadays it is hard for woman to stay at home if her husband hasn't got income very well above standard. So exactly as you said - the only equality women really got is to take up the work of men.

I think about this a lot. I have been very lucky to make enough money to be able to support my family while my wife is at home. We all enjoy that very much, me, her and our kids. But even though I make quite a lot of money above average, it strains us so that we live from paycheque to paycheque. I wouldn't change it, but it is hard. And it shouldn't be, it should be the standard arrangement. I am perfectly okay with husbands staying at home - now that kids are older, I'd very much like to be stay at home dad, take care of home and family and let my wife pursuit her career, but this is next to impossible if we want to maintain any decent standard of living.

Things are very wrong with our culture and many things sold to us as virtues are actually our vices.

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Totally agree, Tom, especially with the contention that two-income households seem to be required. However, sometimes I wonder how much of that requirement is self-imposed by what each generation considers a decent standard of living. I think that what constitutes "decent" today would have been "living extremely well" to my Gen X parents, who lived on practically nothing early in their marriage.

I can only speak for Gen Z, but it seems to me that "decent" to some of us involves a sizeable travel budget, the ability to eat out often, and living in a high-cost-of-living area. Under that idea of "decent," yes, two incomes feel necessary. But I think at least some of us could live on one — it would just take some serious self-sacrifice. What do you think?

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Elizabeth Warren’s book The Two Income Trap, written in 2003, addresses this. The major expense of a middle class family in America is a house in a decent school district. That market used to be based on one income. Once people tried to get a leg up by having two incomes, the market price for a house in a decent district went up commensurately. She also discusses how a stay at home mom provides a financial safety net for her family in at least two ways- if someone should need a caregiver, she can become that caregiver without losing an income, and if the family’s financial circumstances become tight she can go out and earn money. A woman already working cannot add a new salary, the family’s expenses already include her salary. Having women at home who don’t work adds financial stability to a family and a society.

As much as maternity leave is something good, it does seem to me that it’s more about luring women into the workforce than accommodating women who are already working.

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Yes - and it is also the case that when you stay at home to raise your children, you often have the flexibility to do a part-time job that fits in with your family's needs. I did tutoring at home, for instance. Staying at home to raise one's children cuts out a lot of stress: the stress of being ill at work and taking time off; the stress of sick children who require you to come home from work; the stress of dropping children at young ages into day care - and hating doing so; the stress of couples both coming home tired out from work and then arguing over the domestic chores; the stress of not being available to sick and elderly parents - and so on.

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Of course this wildly vary by the location. Our current living in the country with small mortgage would be easy enough for one income family. But we were lucky to find a house that we could buy in cash and then mortgage our investment. If we wouldn't have these savings, it would be much harder. Also these savings haven't appeared exactly magically, right?

Renting apartment in bigger city on average income would mean that about 80 % of my income goes to rent.

About having higher standards than our parents and grandparents - that seems to be true, but it not necessarily is. We have lot more things than our grandparents, but they are a lot cheaper. That means that getting rid of them would not probably bring as much free cash as it seems. Also many of those modern amenities seems to be requirement for a decent job.

In case of our family, our high cost of living is for the large part self imposed, but even with getting rid of all the unnecessary luxuries, my income (that is roughly double of the average) would suffice only to live with small emergency saving fund. We certainly wouldn't be able to save for a house.

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>those modern amenities seem to be a requirement of a decent job.

This point gets lost in the conversation so often. There is lots of criticism for living in HCOL, take out, and other “luxuries,” but there are few decent jobs in LCOL areas, takeout is a necessity if you have two working parents, smart phones aren’t optional because employers expect around the clock availability, etc.!

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Yes indeed. A materialistic standard of living has gone up - but at what cost? I am a member of Mothers At Home Matter, a pressure group explaining to our Government that many mothers would rather be at home to raise their children when they are young. Some couples, to achieve this, do make choices: to live in a cheaper housing area if they can; to forgo expensive holidays, two cars and eating out. But you have to be counter-cultural and determined to do it.

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I wholly agree with you. We were fortunate to buy our first home in the 1970s for a modest sum (and my husband was also on a modest salary). It meant I could stay at home to raise our children too. We did make sacrifices (or at least what other couples would consider sacrifices): only running one car, no foreign holidays, no eating out, 2nd hand clothes (we had eight children). But we managed and we ate well, as I was at home to cook so we didn't have expensive take-aways. And it taught our children the value of money and not growing up in a materialist environment. We also had no TV! Sadly, my married daughters can't afford mortgages without working; mortgages can't be paid on one salary alone when they are quadruple the amount of a single income. The demand to be 'equal' to men has brought us to this. It has not resulted in 'equal in dignity'.

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Sometimes I fantasize about being born just a few decades earlier for this very reason Francis! I have limited (read: zero) experience buying a house, but it seems to me that mortgages have gotten out of control for everyone, not just my generation. I would have to do much more research to prove that, though.

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Well, writing from the UK, mortgages in the south of England and in other desirable hotspots around the country are now beyond the reach of all ordinary couples with ordinary incomes (even if both of them work), unless they have parental or other help. This is partly because successive governments have not done the necessary housebuilding they should, partly because of outdated 'regulations' that seem to tie up land in the hands of speculators and largely because of uncontrolled, mass immigration which began in 1997 under the Blair government and which no succeeding government can or wants to stop.

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Why is the immigration causing mortgages to be expensive?

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Because it creates pressure on the housing stock. Many more people chasing fewer houses, especially in the south.This pushes up house prices, forcing couples to borrow more money for first homes, leading to much higher mortgages.

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Right, so the problem is still that the government reserves the right to tell us where and in what we would be living, but there are even more people that compete for those resources.

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