Sad, Jaded, Femanazi, more of your "stats that came out of the corn flakes packet" (to quote one of your sistas in the hood, back at you) and more of the same tired old rantings, that we have been hearing for 40 years now.

Hows this for a policy. We force by law, all professional, educated women to pursue a career by requiring sterilisation before they can start a uni degree like law, medicine, etc. Or they must agree to take a few weeks only, off, at childbirth, and go straight back to full time work, while supporting a full time stay at home house husband.

Another one could be "workplace conscription" forcing women to apply for all available promotions, work 60 to 100 hours a week, like men do, work night and weekend shift work to chase the penalty rates like men do, work in dirty, dangerous occupations like underground mining or in war zones as front line troops. I am absolutely certain that women would vote for these policies. How about you?

BTW, here's another one of those "interplanetary explanations" that you, the author, and other Femanazi's find to be such an "inconvenient truth". For every 1, single, career woman out there trying to break through the nonexistent "glass ceiling", there are 1000 aggressive, "career women, by proxy" staying at home and pushing their husbands to bring home an ever expanding pay packet, to provide, the life, they appear to be, very accustomed to.

SJF

The issue is not whether unpaid work is counted in GDP. Under our current system GDP relates to the value of what we produce as a nation in dollar terms (from my basic understanding of economics). Unpaid work is valuable in terms of social ‘wealth’ (eg. carers and volunteer work). I agree that without it we would be in a worse state. We can certainly put a social value on unpaid work and even an economic one in some cases - particularly carers who save the government large amounts of money in care services, although it does not relate to production of goods.

As a younger baby boomer I have always considered the decision to stay at home a personal choice made by both partners based on affordability, personal philosophy of how one wishes to raise children and importance of career to each. It is odd that in current times we have more disposable income but many young couples can no longer afford to have one partner out of the workforce for any length of time. We also have a greater level of debt.

The idea of paying a wage to a person to stay at home is a noble ideal but probably not one that we can afford depending on the length of payment ie. to school age or ??. Many governments have had various policies to reduce the burden on one-income families such as tax relief and parenting type allowances.

One idea never discussed is the idea of income splitting for families in the same way that husband and wife businesses income is split (often with the wife not very present in the business dealings) to make it more affordable in the present day. One doesn't see governments of either persuasion pushing the idea of raising children in the home as a valid and positive choice ala 'working families'.

An ideal economy would share the work and family responsibilities by allowing more job-sharing, part-time work and ability to negotiate work-life balance workplace arrangements outside the square.

Anyone want to pay me to stay home?

All resonable offers considered.

Billie

‘The unemployment rate is such a warped figure its really dangerous to use it to develop policy for social support or superannuation or pension or labour force availability projections.’

Absolutely. When the government finally agreed to include unpaid work in the Census in 2004, after many years of lobbying from women’s groups like the Women’s Action Alliance, they (the govt) quickly dropped it. The official excuses were that the data was too ‘subjective’ and ‘unreliable’ and that the issues were already covered by the ABS Time-Use surveys. However, it’s much more likely that it posed a serious danger in exposing the true extent of hidden unemployment and the hidden female economy of unremunerated labour.

Peter Hume

‘… why don’t we just pass a law that the husband must pay to the wife $1,000 a week, as well as superannuation, workers compensation and income tax, and see what happens?’

Yes. Exactly. Why don’t we? Or at least a percentage payment of what the husband earns. Then maybe men will get some idea of what a sweet deal they’ve been getting for centuries. The idea that a housewife should work for nothing has little-to-no economic basis. It’s a paradigm structured into our thinking, based largely on the historical undervaluing of women and children.

And just on your previous comments about children being a ‘choice’ … According to the US National Center of Health Statistics, only about 4.3% of women of childbearing age remain voluntarily childless. This would be an indicator of the voluntary childlessness of the general US population and, more than likely, other developed countries (which I can't find statistics on).

So on this basis, over 95% of people have children. When you combine the strong biological and social imperatives to do so, it’s unrealistic to call it a ‘choice’. But in economic terms, it still tends to be treated as such.

'it’s much more likely that it posed a serious danger'

Hahaha. I love a good conspiracy theory.

'Yes. Exactly. Why don’t we? Or at least a percentage payment of what the husband earns. Then maybe men will get some idea of what a sweet deal they’ve been getting for centuries.'

Oh how naive:-0

Many men would LOVE that one! My money is mine, and your money is yours would be huge for men. The sales of curtains, make-up, hair cuts, clothes, coffee, would plummet, and the sales of beer, gadgets, cars, sporting events etc would sky-rocket.

All this talk about housework, and I was thinking the other day, there has never been a study on yard work and home maintenance....

Hmmm. I wonder why?

BTW: I hope the women will pay some tax on all this money....

Houellebecq: <<BTW: I hope the women will pay some tax on all this money....>>

And of course, that should include GST, with men allowed to deduct the expenses of running such home businesses.

Husbands would then be running the most number of small businesses, and feminists screaming again. And why should men be responsible for providing employment to women anyway? Much better to have women continue to run their own mini baby factories I say.