[Azure]

Originally Posted by GGG

Hellbent on creating opportunity or hellbent on removing barriers.

I agree that everyone seems hellbent on removing those supposed barriers. However I think those 'barriers' are not something you can actually pin down and 'remove.' At some point everyone deals with some kind of barrier in their life that challenges them with their dreams or goals.

So genetically women could be predisposed to desire staying home and raising children as opposed to working in a job. That could be true. It could also be true that men who are genetically predisposed to stay home and raise children are surpressed and are over represented in the workforce because of patriarchal structures that encourage them to work.

So? Why is solving that 'supposed' problem more important than creating a better family structure? I agree that work or working more should not be the end goal, but I think that the idea of the 'dad' in the family working and primarily providing for the family financially and the 'mom' staying at home and being the primary caregiver can and DOES create a stronger family structure and better kids.

I do not know why we think of that as a problem, and secondly why we then attempt to solve that.

The question that I think is unanswered is do the societal structures as they currently exist surpress Women's involvement in the work place. So go back to the CEO and maximizing value. What portion of women do we lose of those top 20% because they are born women.

I think the biggest outcome you can do to strengthen the family structure is for men to be more involved in it. Looking at outcomes for children without strong male role models shows a significant drop in outcomes. So perhaps as part of eliminating barriers which prevent us from Maximizinf women contributions to the work force we can also eliminate barriers which prevent Men from maximizing their contributions to their families.

So going back to the child care example. Non subsidized daycare devalues the work of the second income earner by reducing the realized wage after expenses. So Cliffs argument that equal subsidies of the stay at home option would be a better test is incorrect.

The real test is at what threshold of income would the average man who makes less than his wife go back to work for And and what income would the average women who makes less than her husband go back to work for. If these values are equal then men and women would value work equally. The fact the women's labour participation jumps dramatically when subsidizes suggests that the reason women choose not to work is that the economic benefit isn't high enough. The fact that men's jumps far less shows that men choosing to stay home is much more of a value choice.

So in the end the goal would be to build societal structures that give choice of expression of each individuals desires without having the societal structures dictate those choices on the basis of gender.

I realize that the structure of our society is generally geared a certain way, even largely in the way you are pointing out.

I also agree and KNOW that the tax law in our country is definitely sexist.

But I also don't necessarily see solving those main 'structural' problems as solving the real problem.

The real problem being how do we raise responsible and ambitious kids.