Reply to Why is it that the higher up you go in the social ladder, the more enforced gender norms are?

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Reply to "Why is it that the higher up you go in the social ladder, the more enforced gender norms are?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
What is highly paid in your view?  Could you fully make up his income if he stopped working?

I don’t think my two statements contradict. First, I mentioned guys in challenging careers (though I should have said ambitious, high earning careers that don’t allow for work life balance).  I’m trying to get at outlier compensation jobs. Second, the math is not so simple. In my household with outlier base compensation, I work 60-70 hours per week on average. If my spouse and I were both working in well balanced jobs, we could probably get to 75% total of my total base (ignoring bonuses) while working about 20 hours more combined (then add in time for commuting and additional work necessitated stuff and the math gets worse). On top of that, I would undoubtedly be less stressed but my spouse’s stress would undoubtedly increase more than my relative stress would decrease.

Perhaps we’re traveling in different circles, but in my experience, around guys making a minimum of $500k/year, I’ve never heard a complaint about a SAHM’s lack of ambition or career. Perhaps the incremental income doesn’t really do much for those households, and those guys would be complaining if they were making less and the incremental income had more value to them.  I just don’t think the math here is as simple as you suggest and I know for a fact that in my circles, I’ve never heard a guy complain about his SAHW’s lack of a career.

Finally, even if my spouse could earn my full income, I think she would be less willing than I am to accept the time commitment and availability demands required. I’m not complaining and she would do it if necessary, but on a relative basis, she would be less happy than I am with the work demands.

I get what you’re getting at in your last sentence, but as long as some people are willing to fully commit to their jobs at the expense of other things in their lives (admittedly, overwhelmingly married men and childless workers of both genders), what can be done?  [/quote]
Clipping the top responses cuz they're long.

Highly-paid -  me: ~$250K, DH: ~$500-600K, I turned down a job that could have crossed 7-figures with bonus, so, yeah, I could make it up.

I agree that you don't see high-earning DH's complaining about their SAHW's lack of ambition...but similarly you don't see high-earning DW's complaining about their spouse's lack of ambition. You hear them complaining that their DH doesn't do anything to pull their weight, no housework, little childcare, etc.

I think the math you're doing isn't so straightforward, and you also have to take into account what's being missed. There are tangible benefits to having two people earning an income, and ultimately the question is, "How much money do you really need?". We earn way, way more than we really need. DH knows this, and he talks about cutting back. But he really doesn't want to...because he likes what he's doing. Maybe your DW is happy in her situation, but I know many talented, educated, ambitious women who ended up making career sacrifices that they feel pretty ambivalent about.

TBH, I don't really know what this discussion is about anymore. The reality is that I honestly don't believe it's healthy for anyone to "fully commit to their jobs at the expense of other things in their lives". My dad is looking back on his life from the other end, and he has tons of regrets he doesn't know how to begin addressing...and in reality he can't. I see DH entering into a similar pattern, and it's almost like he feels powerless to stop it. I've worked in more than one sector and at more than one organization, and the one constant I've seen is how much time people (esp. those ambitious men) waste on useless work. There is definitely room for change in these oh-so-important careers, if people wanted to try. I don't, truly, know what the answer is other than "ambitious men" collectively coming to the realization that there's a better way...but I don't think we should pretend that everyone is happy with the current, UMC gender dynamics.[/quote]

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