Because biology. Mothers have to take time off work (to give birth), fathers don’t. Freedom of choice is important, but so is specialisation (so the couple can be more efficient), so it makes more sense for mother to specialise for family (sacrificing career), and father to specialise for career (sacrificing family).

First off, the medical reasons women take time off are protected by employment law in a variety of ways and most professional careers offer generous paid time off with FMLA protection on their careers. So the biological argument is specious. Note many fathers also get equivalent time off with the mom.

The specialization argument makes no sense. Why does it make sense for the mother to specialize for the family than the man? You made a large unexplained logical leap in that one that I don’t think is defensible.

The reason is economic and tradition at this point. Due to unfair compensation practice that rewards women less for the same work it makes more sense for her to not work. Tradition also compels a lot of couples in this direction. Both of these forces work to take women out of the work force.

The return to work force friction is very sad, and I honestly don’t understand it.

> Because biology. Mothers have to take time off work (to give birth), fathers don’t.

This is not true. Just google "woman gives birth at work" for many examples. https://www.newsweek.com/colorado-woman-gives-birth-car-deal...

Also, in general, American workers tend to get fewer days off work than European workers, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Let's say a woman works 45 years during her life. That's well over 10,000 working days. And let's say she has 2 kids. How many days off do you think she needs, medically speaking, for childbirth? The percentage is very very low.

This is a very conservative view. Giving birth is something only the mother can do, but there is no biological reason why a mother should raise the child and not the father. This renders you argument about specialization mute. In almost every developed country, it's possible to work 32 hours instead of 40 hours, which means that with 3 days of daycare the mother and father can share the responsibility raising a child equally.

You misunderstood my argument.

If father specialises for work, he can devote 100%. If mother specialises for work, she can only devote 90% (or whatever, to account for birth & recovery in first year).

Therefore all things being equal (i.e. “controlling for other variables” in statistics) father specialising for work will be more profitable for the family than mother specialising for work. Everyone (well, every couple) is free to choose what they want, weighing tradeoffs along many dimensions (money isn’t everything, but it’s a lot) but don’t be surprised if choices are biased towards “economically sensible”.

Sure, you can also do things “equally” but I estimate you’ll be getting less, on average (i.e. you will earn less per day working 3x per week than 5x (or 6x))

So if I understand correctly, you are saying there are two scenarios:

1. Father working full-time, mother staying-at-home for a few years

2. Father and mother working both reduced hours

Your conclusion is that sum of wages accumulated over the career length of both the father and the mother is higher in scenario 1 than in scenario 2?

If that's the case, then first of all I doubt that's true. And second, that means we as a society are sacrificing gender equality in return for disposable income. I think gender equality is not worth a small increase in disposable income (and I don't even think that staying at home economically is the better choice).

No, I’m saying that (1) for most unequal splits, father working will be more profitable than mother working, because of biology (mother has to take time off), and (2) unequal splits are better than equal splits (e.g. both working 100%, or both working 60%) because the latter have negative externalities (childcare cost, kids raised by strangers, less career progress because only working 60% etc).

Some people will still take equal splits, but not all will.

> I think gender equality is not worth a small increase in disposable income

Not gonna respond to this part because I can’t really figure out what you meant, but one comment is: “gain for society, loss for individual” usually requires a fair amount of coercion.

Indeed you are right that "gain for society, loss for individual" requires coercion, so that's why equal splits should be more profitable (if it's not the case already). That's a political decision.

It’s the ideological difference between “equality” (of opportunity) vs “equity” (of outcome). The former increases freedom, the latter increases coercion.

I see freedom valuable and coercion damaging. Freedom to choose also requires you to be able to choose the “wrong” choice. So in my view enforcing gender equality is just as bad, if not worse, as enforcing gender inequality.

I'm not convinced working mothers are all that happier tbh, and by having them work the market equilibria shift towards requiring them to work. It's more like gain in individual freedom, loss for everyone.

Why wouldn't working mothers be happier? Are working fathers unhappier? I think people who have freedom of choice without facing pressure from society are happier. If they choose to stay at home in a level playing field, that's perfect. Everyone should make their own choice. But as long as the ratio between stay-at-home mothers and stay-at-home fathers is not 50/50, I believe mothers face more pressure from society than fathers and have less freedom of choice.

I also think your statement that more individual freedom for women is a loss for everyone needs some clarification. That's a wild thing to say. I hope I interpreted this wrong?

Most people don’t have the freedom to choose not to work.

> there is no biological reason why a mother should raise the child and not the father.

Breastfeeding in the early year(s) is a defensible reason I think.

> Why is at always the mothers who choose to be stay-at-home mothers, and very rarely fathers

Because on average, fathers tend to make more than mothers. That's not the only calculation, but it's a big one.

Why don't the father and mother both work less? I.e. 4 days (32 hours) instead of 5 days (40 hours). As long as this is not common practice, combined with expensive or inaccessible daycare, women will always face more difficulties in their career. There's no biological justification for this, instead it's entirely the result of cultural conventions and political decisions. I think we should recognize this, because if we don't, gender equality will be out of reach in the near future.

> Why don't the father and mother both work less?

Because not every employer would allow this.

That's the result of choices we, or our elected representatives, have made. There are other choices we can make.

>>>There's no biological justification for this

Do you have children? I'm father to a 16-month old. The first few months especially, our daughter would not go to sleep unless my wife held her. No amount of compassion on my part could overcome the ingrained link a newborn has with its mother.

You are basically arguing that new mothers can have their babies ripped from their arms while they get shackled to their cubicle, and that this will have no negative impacts on the child's development......all in the pursuit of "equality"? This strikes me as....misguided.

That was the case in my family. Similar backgrounds, 2x salary difference.

Women tend to make less than men so it makes economic sense for the woman to stay at home. The problem gets worse and the disparity as the man’s career progresses and the woman’s declines, sometimes to the point that day care comes with opportunity cost relative to not working - I.e., the woman’s income doesn’t offset the increased expenses.

This is a systemic and structural tragedy.

That said as a hiring manager I love hiring women returning to work. They have a very clear reason to be there and their productivity is very high, and more than offsets any reduction in hours they might face due to lingering responsibilities.

I don't think it actually makes that much sense from an economical perspective if you look at it carefully.

First, the choice is not binary (i.e. mother or father stays at home). There's alternatives like working reduced hours (32 hours) and using day care. This is common practice in a lot of developed countries.

Second, the cost of the wage gap resulting from suspending your career for a few years, accumulated over your entire career length is really high. My income doubled in the last 5 years. Using day care then suddenly isn't that expensive at all, at least not in my country. But you have to make the right calculations, and look at the cost of reduced future wages as well.

The fact is a lot of parents (me included!) don’t want to outsource early childhood just to level up in our jobs. In that rationale, of someone is staying home, it is a binary choice. It’s not a fully economic choice, which makes it even MORE important you make the best economic choice for who stays home. Hence the man, given wage inequality, goes to work.

There are definitely couples that both work and leverage child care of some form. That’s a reasonable choice. But it’s also comes with a large trade off from a parenting point of view.

In my family I would have loved to stay home. But I made considerably more than my wife did. When she reentered the work force she faced a lot of obstacles and essentially started over again. Fortunately I work from 6am-3pm since I’m in seattle and the org I manage is based in the UK and NYC. So my wife can work a normal job and I can pick up my daughter at school without requiring child care expenses. But it’s a little depressing for my wife to have left a high powered career and now is bouncing around the bottom of the ladder. But it got us time to parent and let us earn the most money by letting my career keep growing. It just came at the cost of her pride and self worth as a professional.

Thank you for your insights. I want to add some.

First, let's say both parents are working 32 hours, and a child goes to daycare for 3 days. That's 24 out of 168 hours a week, in which the child also gets to play with other children. I can understand the hesitancy against outsourcing parenting, but for me this is a perfectly acceptable scenario.

Second, you explain it's depressing for your wife to leave a high powered career and now to be bouncing at the bottom of the career ladder. It's difficult to put a number on this, but I think this should be an important factor in the equation used for optimizing economic outcome. Also, I strongly believe it's better for children as well to have parents who live their ambitions and chase their dreams. Happier parents = happier children?

Finally, you state that earning the most money came at the expensive of her pride and self worth as a professional. Would you have made any other decisions in retrospect?

In America 32 hours is part time which loses all benefits, including child health care, and it’s a much more precarious position. Further there’s no career advancement possible. Also note most professional jobs 40 hours is the MINIMUM, with typical expectation being 50-60 and often includes travel - during which the parent at home has 100% responsibility.

I don’t know that it was depressing per se for my wife or me, it was what we wanted. And we would make the same choices again given the same options and outcomes. The negative side effects of the choices are mostly societal consequences and I think we would prefer society not make parenting a career damaging choice. There’s no benefit to anyone in the current model. But also it’s important to note in my case I make nearly 10x what my wife would. Most couples will have a tighter decision to make - but will usually pick the man even with a smaller differential due to tradition.

I'm a stay-at-home father.

My wife stayed home for a few years for traditional reasons, and then got an offer that was too good to refuse. So I left my position to support and my family when she returned to work, as well as because I was looking for a career change.

So we've taken turns.

I haven't really stopped working in some ways. I still serve on many professional committees and positions and do consulting, but don't have a salary per se, and wouldn't survive financially on my own.

I've found myself asking the same question you have. The linked essay really resonates with me as do many of the posts here.

Society really makes so many assumptions about peoples' lives. There's a lot of lost opportunities because of impulsive, angry, or prejudiced decisions. I'd say in the last 10 years of my life a dominant theme has been a feeling of being walled in by others' prejudices and presumptions, of being typecast in a lot of ways. Not just with regard to gender (that might be the least of it really), but with regard to what I can offer, what my skillset is, what I'm interested in doing, and all sorts of other things.

> men are used to working with men who don't take breaks from their career to raise their children.

It's not limited to men. I've heard other women throw shade at pregnant and nursing mothers who need special accommodations. Sometimes even other mothers...