Not sure why you keep quoting articles that undermined your own argument. If Target pays a male cashier $15 an hour but a female one $14.70, despite both have exactly the same experience/background/aptitude etc, how’s that not discrimination?
And that doesn’t even account for promotion opportunities and women having to derail their own careers to care for kids. Remember, that study is controlled for job roles and experiences. Women being skipped over for promotion will get paid less, being stuck in more junior roles. She would also have fewer years of experience if she put her career on hold to care for her kids.
Look let’s be blunt - when women take time off from the workforce to be pregnant and a caregiver, they are being rehired by a majority male management. If men were willing to let the clock stop and rehire women, it would be a choice to work or not to work. But most women know that the clock won’t stop, and that they will be viewed as less capable because of their time off.
Even my husband said to me while I was a SAHM “I would never hire you because you don’t know enough programming languages.” Instead of judging me on potential and ability to come up to speed quickly, he was judging based on my experience across the previous 5 years, 2 of which were part time, and 3 a SAHM. If that’s the metric that women with caregiving breaks are being hired on, they don’t really have a true choice to stay or not in the workforce. They are either choosing to sacrifice their careers for their kids, or their kids for their careers.
If you’re a guy, and you’re the one hiring, try fixing this.
My employer has kicked off a ‘returnship’ program to identify, support and employ people who’ve taken time off for caregiving.
I signed up and budgeted staffing from my team towards this initiative.
By “forced”, I was, because our joint income at that time was how we afforded rent. We couldn’t have survived financially at that time on one income alone. As we get older, we are more able to make that decision to be on one income or for me to cut back if I wanted, but in my late 20s/early 30s (DH is 2 years older) that wasn’t an option,which is incidentally, also a good time to have kids as per the patriarchy who can’t stand the thought of older moms.
there is also a long term impact to women staying at home, as far as ability for career earnings go and less contribution to social security. My goal was to barely hang on in the workforce so I didn’t have to pay the “motherhood penalty” for taking time off, which is still very much a real thing.
By asking whether you were forced to work, I was clarifying whether someone forced you to take the job. You chose the job because it was better than other options you had at the time. Given that you had very few choices, you should be thankful to your employer for giving you work. That is called Gratitude and Appreciation.
The economy is interconnected. To give you a raise, someone else may have to be given a pay cut or job loss. One persons problem is another persons opportunity. The liberals do not like it to be said that way, but that is how the life works.
I personally admire your decision to have children early. Children born to a mother older than 30 have higher risk of down syndrome. Also, your kids will be out of high school while you will still be in 50s. You will enjoy your letter part of life better than people who delayed baby to the later ages.
Honestly, I didn’t know men cared about older vs. younger moms. But having done the pregnancies, they definitely got harder as I got older - I would be lying if I said that waiting until your late 30s is a good thing.
Having kids when you are older sucks for multiple reasons. Not least is risk to child and mom. we had 2 miscarriages across 4 pregnancies. You can think of the toll on mom (physically and emotionally). Hate to do man-splaining, but i think a lot of guys under-estimate the risk to mom’s life in the pregnancy process.
I dont know how they collect data… Median age in Japan is closer to 50. China median age is 37.
Taiwan median is higher than China and fertility closer to Japan.
That’s easy enough to explain based on where they are on the curve. But the curve itself belies some data collection problems. Why would it go off a cliff in 2017?
Don’t know how they measure but heard Chinese men are going overseas for wives, marrying Russians, Africans, Indo-Chinese and ofc Singaporeans and Americans.
@manch likes to argue for argument’s sake. Both him and me are SAHH while wives are working. Shame on him Cost of childcare and after school care are expensive, and locked the schedule of working parent, in most cases, better to just bite the bullet and one of the parent (not necessary the wife) quits from the work force. Ofc, have to tighten the belt for many years I recalled during that period, no new clothes, budget vacations, one small (1.3L) car, 1300 sqft 2Br townhouse, minimum eating out, package lunch for wife, … Have to live according to your means.
I manage to break out of this situation with a tiny investment in AAPLs
谋事在人，成事在天. Man proposes, God disposes
We couldn’t have survived financially at that time on one income alone. As we get older, we are more able to make that decision to be on one income or for me to cut back if I wanted, but in my late 20s/early 30s (DH is 2 years older) that wasn’t an option,which is incidentally, also a good time to have kids as per the patriarchy who can’t stand the thought of older moms.
and Americans.
Cost of childcare and after school care are expensive, and locked the schedule of working parent, in most cases, better to just bite the bullet and one of the parent (not necessary the wife) quits from the work force. Ofc, have to tighten the belt for many years 
I recalled during that period, no new clothes, budget vacations, one small (1.3L) car, 1300 sqft 2Br townhouse, minimum eating out, package lunch for wife, … Have to live according to your means.
