I want to read Stephanie Coontz's piece in the New York Times and add the required "rah-rah" every time she talks about paid maternity leave, but I can't. I've tried to read it two or three times, but it's just too depressing and… well… clueless.
We're in a crappy economy. As I mentioned in the comment section of a recent blog post, my own family hit a rough patch last fall. My husband's new job does not provide health insurance or paid vacation days. One of my best friends diapers two-year olds at a daycare center to pay the bills; she has a PhD from NYU. Other friends are working 6 days a week, while getting paid for 5 or living without any health insurance. Almost everyone I know is seriously scraping by.
It's very hard to worry about gender equality, when you can't pay the mortgage.
Apt. 11d 
Laura, it’s too bad you couldn’t make it through, not just because it’s a great piece, but because I think you would agree with her conclusion:
So let’s stop arguing about the hard choices women make and help more women and men avoid such hard choices. To do that, we must stop seeing work-family policy as a women’s issue and start seeing it as a human rights issue that affects parents, children, partners, singles and elders. Feminists should certainly support this campaign. But they don’t need to own it.
Health insurance is a human rights issue, not solely a woman’s issue, and one every citizen should be invested in.
On a more personal note, I’m sorry for your family’s rough patch. We went without health insurance for a year when my children were toddlers, and that experience transformed me into a diehard universal health care advocate. Nothing like waking up in a hospital room and worrying not about your recent surgery, but the mounting bills, to open your eyes to the importance of health care for all. It also made me deeply determined to get a job that came with health insurance, so that we wouldn’t be solely dependent on my husband’s job for coverage.
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I didn’t read the Coontz article for the same reason you didn’t — it seemed like it was going to be an exhortation for more family friendly policies without talking about how we get there from the economic situation of today and in a global marketplace.
As a contrast to Coontz is the op-ed piece (I’m not finding it now, but thinking the Post or the Times), that exhorts the young woman making 35K a year to think about how much of her potential salary is going to health care. The argument is that the reason that salaries have stagnated is that most potential salary increases (resulting from productivity increases) are being used to pay for insurance. Of course, no attention is paid to another explanation for stagnating wages — that most productivity increases have accrued to the top of the company and not to its workers.
I think we’re at a crossroads where Americans, as a country, have to decide how much risk they are willing to shoulder individually (and require others to shoulder) and how much we want to share and then to calculate the costs of both options, one of which will be largely individual and highly variable while the other will require shared cost among all of us, with a cost sharing system we’ll have to negotiate as well. We’re stuck in limbo because one view of shared risk and cost isn’t winning out.
Keeping fighting for one side (more shared risk/shared goals, in my book) is a good idea, but we have to talk about pricing out the costs and how we plan to pay as well.
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We have health insurance, but not paid for by a company. We have COBRA, which is $1,800 per month, btw.
Most workers that I talk to these days aren’t fighting about maternity leave or family friendly policies. Frankly, the people who took advantage of flex time and similar policies were the first to get fired when the economy hit the skids a few years back. Right now, people just want to get a paycheck. That’s it. They are putting in crazy hours doing double the work that they used to, and it isn’t getting any better.
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And, on the other hand, there’s a subset of people who are doing well. The S&P is up 10%; others saw similar gains in salary (and, yes, this mostly affected people in the 1%).
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I saw something (maybe NYTimes? don’t really remember where) which showed that all salary gains since 2009 have gone to the 1%, and salaries for the 99% have dropped .4%. It made me too depressed to read the article. I hoped that since our recent recession people would agitate more to decrease the widening inequality in the US, but it’s still growing, and politicians clearly don’t care even about the middle class, much less those below. We’re basically now an oligarchy ruled by an elite class beholden pretty much solely to large corporate interests.
I have mixed feelings saying feminism doesn’t matter, but I do agree that 3rd wave (and second wave in part) were aimed at UMC women whose primary worries were those of how to be equal to UMC men, and that’s a very limited and problematic view of feminism. I also agree that looking at women’s labor from a labor standpoint rather than a feminist one is more important right now.
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“The S&P is up 10%; others saw similar gains in salary (and, yes, this mostly affected people in the 1%).”
By the way, I’ve been wanting to mention that normally, debt-forgiveness counts as taxable income. There’s been a temporary federal exemption on this for certain taxpayers, but there are probably still people who get taxed for forgiven debt (I can’t quite remember the fine print on this). Say, for instance, you short-sell a $400k house for only $200k. You get a 1099 form from the bank and the $200k in debt that you are forgiven may be treated as taxable income. Not all income is real, spendable income.
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I think the attempt of feminism to substitute a loyalty to other women for loyalty to family was doomed: it could be pretended during good times, but when things get rough, women will be concerned with the welfare of their own sons and brothers, husbands – as men will be concerned with wives, daughters, sisters.
Likewise, the attempt to bundle more and more nice stuff (day care, family leave, health insurance) onto the top of jobs is unstable. In our area, the union grocery store – with day care, family leave, health insurance – has always cost more than the nonunion store, and shoppers are defecting.
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“In our area, the union grocery store – with day care, family leave, health insurance – has always cost more than the nonunion store, and shoppers are defecting.”
That’s why it only works when its mandated by law or provided with taxes. Not, even in this liberal mind, a complete answer, since we cannot mandate the laws or the services provided by other nations, and thus, there will be a competitive disadvantage compared to other nations. The only hope is that the services we provide also provide competitive advantages (which they do) and that other countries (China?) will also provide more services as their countries grow wealthier. Absent repression (which is a laudable goal), presumably the Chinese, too, will demand a greater share of their countries wealth, too.
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My browser keeps not wanting me to post this:
The NY times article “The Health Benefits That Cut Your Pay” is the following: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/opinion/sunday/the-health-benefits-that-cut-your-pay.html?src=rechp&_r=0
In it a corporate exec type argues that a 23 year old woman, a new employee, who makes 35K pays about $8300 for health insurance ($2100 that she’s aware of and another $6200 paid by the employer, which he says “might” otherwise be paid as salary — yes, that might seems important to me, since I suspect that she wouldn’t gain that salary back unless it was mandated).
11D pays about $21,000. We pay about $16000 (for a family).
How much should health insurance cost (presuming that insurance will cost as much as it pays out, on average, minus relevant management fees)? And, who should receive subsidies, and who should provide subsidies?
I fully expect not to be subsidized and to pay subsidies, but we need to talk about numbers and what they mean.
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Two words: smuggle cigarettes. That’s my plan B.
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As an almost graduate and a Mom, I had this scary awakening recently. It only took until my thirtieth year of life that I realized I can not have it all. To be available to my children’s needs, and deserving wants I will always earn a little less, work a little less, and climb the corporate ladder slower. I HATE admitting it, but when your children need you – gender equality sucks.
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I am finding that pinch too and as the lower earner I see my job (while very important to me) as the more expendable.
I’m stunned at the cost of your health insurance. People say that Canadians are taxed more heavily but the difference between our taxes and your taxes are almost surely not $1800 of after-tax income a month, especially taking property tax into account.
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Canada spends about half as much per person on health care. Possibly because the doctors don’t understand the patients who speak French.
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Or maybe at least partially because cigarettes cost twice as much in Canada as they do in most of the U.S. Not that I’m suggesting smuggling cigarettes into Canada. NYC has the same high prices but with no customs search, a shorter drive, and nobody will try to pay for the smokes using money made of plastic.
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Laura’s figure for health insurance is not unusual at all – we’re freelancers and pay about the same amount, as do many other freelancers & small business owners we know.
I think that framing the article’s point as gender equality is a luxury in hard times is not quite right… Just as framing women’s rights as not having to act differently around the time they have children than men act is also not quite right. I do think that framing the issue as family rights would be more helpful. Men also benefit when women don’t have to choose between giving up a career or giving up being with their children for a year or two to stay in the work force (and many would really like to be with their children for a year or two). I think that families are really abandoned by society in this country, and this doesn’t help anyone in hard times either.
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Would you be more receptive to what Coontz is proposing if she didn’t tie it to equality? Maybe it is just because her proposals align with my personal politics but I like what she had to say. I like that she is proposing structural rather than personal changes and I think those things are important regardless of whether they are directly linked to equality. (Although I do think that policy changes like universal health care would have the greatest impact in improving the lives of women.)
The recession hasn’t been that bad for most of the people I know: those with a decent education and work experience that are also generalists in their lines of work. It’s that last one that has really seemed to hit some of my college-educated friends the worst. If they have very specific skills in a certain industry and they lose their job they are screwed.
The recession has been terrible for a large portion of the population, of course, those that don’t have college educations or solid work histories. What policies changes would benefit this group the most? For me, it would be the things Coontz proposes.
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Kata said: I think that families are really abandoned by society in this country….
I agree. Somebody once remarked that America is a first world country with third world babies.
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“Somebody once remarked that America is a first world country with third world babies.”
I was about to say that ethnically, that is getting to be the case. However, on second thought, I think that’s a really ridiculous thing to say. The real third world is nothing at all like the US, not even the poorest parts of the US.
I suggest a good look at Jeevan Kuruvilla’s blog archives for anybody who disagrees. Jeevan is an Indian doctor practicing in rural India who does a lot of work with mothers. Here’s a sample post for the casual reader:
http://jeevankuruvilla.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2013-02-17T16:26:00%2B05:30&max-results=3
I have to rush off, but one of the basic problem that they deal with in that setting is that women are totally fungible. Your wife dies, you get a new wife.
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I think that families are really abandoned by society in this country….
I agree, but I don’t know if we mean the same thing. To me, the real shame is that working families are so heavily taxed to provide inflated pensions for old folks, especially retired government employees. It’s also unfortunate that married two-earner couples are taxed more heavily than unmarried couples.
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IMO it’s finally gotten to the point where the consumer-driven, profligate American health care industry is too expensive for *everyone*. (Not just too expensive for the 20% who are poorest, which used to be the case, and which we accepted.)
Have you seen this?
http://metamodern.com/2009/11/15/a-unique-health-care-system/
Our health care system is simultaneously ineffective and outrageously expensive. It just can’t continue like this.
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cgg/Amy P
Maybe second world babies? I think we’re like countries where no one is starving to death, but malnutrition (from having enough but not the right food) and effects from environmental pollutants still affect the outcomes for the poorest children.
bj
It will be interesting to see what the new leadership does in China, but there’s definitely been a move towards more social spending and increasing incomes for rural people. A national healthcare system is in the works, and as of now there’s a new subsidized rural health insurance program and all women are eligible for free prenatal care (of course, this is linked to the 1-3 child policy). There has been a lot more unrest recently (past 5 years) in the form of ordinary people protesting pollution, corruption, and low wages/bad labor practices, and the CCP is realizing it needs to make the 99% of China happy, not just the urban elites. (Also, since the early 1990s, urban success has come on the backs of Chinese peasants, who were pushed to breaking point by the early 2000s.) This is a big difference between the dissidents now vs. those of 89–current dissidents aren’t necessarily against the CCP, they just want more effective governance and a higher standard of living, and the government is scrambling to appease the peasants to avoid any Arab Spring type issues.
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The numbers aren’t huge (and so may not have much effect on our national numbers), but some percentage of our bad health outcomes are from sheer bloody-minded incompetence and non-compliance on the part of the patients themselves and their parents.
The most well-known example of this is the anti-vaccine movement, but there are a number of other problem areas. There are “natural” cancer cures, which probably cost us Steve Jobs.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/10/24/steve-jobs-cancer-treatment-regrets/
Jobs was fighting cancer with “acupuncture, dietary supplements and juices.” The homebirth movement is another example of problems with patient compliance with normal medical protocols. I was reading a thread a couple days ago where a US mom had a successful homebirth…of surprise twins. Can you imagine not knowing you were having twins, in a developed country in 2013? It’s nuts. In some circles, it’s gotten to be a thing not to do ultrasounds at all.
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Not that its really any of my business, but $1800 for COBRA sounds *really* high. I’m in a not-platinum-but-pretty-good-pays-for-OT-and-speech-and-all-that-stuff-with-a-low-deductable-and-copay large group plan and my COBRA cost would be just south of $1400. In a region that is as expensive as New Jersey. That must be *some* health plan.
I suppose if you are in the position of having to use COBRA then that isn’t the time where you can shop around for less frills…
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I recall reading (I believe it was in the back of one of those American Girl kids books about the depression) that the feminists and teachers unions were pushing to have married women laid off in preference to single women who had to support themselves — while the married women were presumably second earners who would not be in such dire straits with their husbands working.
It is the sort of thing that makes complete sense in the abstract, but would be rightfully shot down if anyone tried to argue the same point today.
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@AmyP – we have just as many idiots in Canada, on a per-capita basis. 🙂
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I also think that families are abandoned by society. But there’s a whole lot of other people being abandoned right now, too. Single people living in rural areas without an education, minorities in rust belt states, working class Italian kids with a $100,000 of debt and a degree in retail sales. Who’s the biggest loser? I don’t know.
In this economy, I find it weird to advocate for work-family reforms, because those types of reforms are primarily aimed at people like me — educated, middle-class women. And I’m not the biggest loser out there right now.
Maybe we can talk about work-family reforms, but only after a series of disclaimers or something. Not sure.
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That american girl’s book (Kit) was good. I read it in 2008 and it was very evocative of where we could end up after a financial catastrophe.
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I liked most of the American Girl series. I just got a little weirded out by the newer series set in the 1970s, because if I can remember it, it is by definition not “historical.”
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I don’t remember that episode (about laying off married women first) from Kit (the Depression-era American Girl), but I used to love those books, and so did my daughter.
Especially I liked the Swedish immigrant girl (Kirsten), who (i) on the one hand, was definitely displacing the Indian inhabitants of the land but (ii) was no longer hungry all the time, the way she had been in Sweden. That was a pretty good level of recognition of historical ambiguity, for an eight-year-old’s book. Unfortunately, the writing didn’t quite rise to the level required for such explorations. You would need something like Housman’s “The Welsh Marches” for that, but the intended audience might not appreciate language that elevated.
The only things I didn’t like was that the series lacked an urban immigrant girl, plus having a Hispanic girl seemed forced, given that there were very few Hispanic Americans in the 19th century.
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