petej,

'I used to work for the Commonwealth Bank in the late 50s, and I remember that when a woman got married she had to resign from her job; no other words for it, "social engineering".'

Social engineering in line with what I have argued is the desires of a LOT of women. The reverse engineering of feminism has given the smaller proportion of less maternal and more independent women not interested in family more choice. It's just that this choice has come at a cost to the very many women who want to stay at home.

The proof is in the pudding. The social engineering has been removed by feminism, but women aren't any happier with having their kids in child care, and resent time away at work. Women brought up hearing how wonderful this wage slave gear was did enjoy it, until they changed their minds once an alternative arrived in little kids. This phenomena lends itself to the conclusion that the previous social engineering suited more women than the current one.

Of course the choice is there to downsize your life or save like hell to afford what was granted by the old social order. I'm not saying I'd rather go back, but I hate when people act as if women are payed less on average due to some discrimination. As I said, if more women had the choice to stay home because their husbands earned enough, there would be a BIGGER wage gape due to WOMENS choices.

Amazing. So according to Houelly women resent being at work and they'd much prefer to be financially dependent and the old ways suited women and they were happier then. I've heard of 'the brave new world', but this is the first time I've heard of 'the brave old world'. The old world where women knew their place was at home and in the bedroom, joyous that being barefoot, pregnant and dependent was the pathway to fulfillment and happiness. Houelly's 'brave old world'. LOL.

Pelican:"Note the title refers to Gen Y only."

Yes, I did. Gen Y is the upcoming generation. It represents the future. The figures show clearly that in urban areas, women in Gen Y are doing better than men. In rural areas the situation is less clear-cut, for all sorts of reasons, not least the obvious one that there are fewer professional positions available in the country, while there are more blue-collar jobs that pay relatively well, such as mining.

The baby boomer generation of women are starting to inherit their husbands' wealth, but that isn't counted in the income stats - it's one of those "invisible" transfers I mentioned earlier.

A few women in Gen X are the only ones screaming "what about me, it isn't fair" as they wake up to the fact that they don't have a husband to inherit from and they don't have a career because they chose to have babies before getting rid of hubby and settling down to an easy life of Government handouts, if they ever bothered to have a "hubby" at all.

All the untaxed handouts given to those women are also uncounted in the income figures.

No matter which way you slice it, women are better off than they have ever been and men are paying for it.

'So according to Houelly women resent being at work and they'd much prefer to be financially dependent '

In a word, no. But as the experiences of the blog I quoted, my circle of friends and that of a few female posters here, many women, given the choice, with young kids, would rather be the one at home and not their partner and would rather their kids not in child care. As I said, a lot of women.

And as I said, 'I'm not saying I'd rather go back'.

But you go on twisting my words for whatever your objective is. I make the point purely to demonstrate that if more women were financially able to have their first choice, their partners would earn more so they could stay at home with their kids. This choice would have men earn a lot more than women than they do now.

One more time for the dummy, I'm not saying women don't want the choice to work, but that their decisions show that the gender wage gap is not evidence of discrimination. In fact, reducing the gender wage gap actually limits the choices of women wanting to stay at home, and the existing gap is evidence of women taking advantage of the choices they have.

It will be interesting to see if the metrosexual male and the high earning Gen Y women from this study end up battling for who gets to stay at home. It will be very hard for these women to find a man earning more than them, and I'll bet we hear even more about the 'man drought' than we currently do. Then those that settle for someone earning less will find it very hard to justify why they should be the primary carer.

Perhaps we'll end up with a lot of resentful women like the OP of the article...

http://blogs.news.com.au/moneystuff/index.php/news/comments/my_husband_earns_less_than_me_and_i_hate_it/

Or even like this female poster...

"The man has to protect and provide for his family since you simply CANNOT expect a woman to be both the breadwinner and the caretaker while the man just settles into some subordinate and lesser role since clearly he would only be a caretaker of the woman’s children and not mother, nurturer and maintainer.

This isn’t about feminism.
This is about what we are biologically optimised to do.

If a man cannot afford to maintain, protect and provide for his family, has reservations or half-baked desire to do so, don’t have children."

Very true petej. An older friend of mine had a similar experience in the banking industry. She was a rare woman that had risen to the rank of senior teller but still earned less than the young male tellers under her charge.

This is just the way it was for various social reasons and historical perceptions of roles.

Anti
We will have to agree to disagree on the importance of the statistics about Gen Y. It does not IMO opinion reflect the future given that many of those Gen Y women will drop out to have and raise children. One statistic does not reflect the future particularly when in all other age groups women are earning less than their male counterparts.

I wish it was possible for more women/men to stay at home and raise children but thanks to growthist mentality and a rise in personal debt these choices are often not available to either men or women.