Nice to see that women are capable of
grasping that feminism is bad for more women than it
benefits economically:
Author
Fay Weldon has risked infuriating fellow feminists by claiming their cause left
two-thirds of British women worse off. In an interview in The Mail on Sunday’s
Event magazine today, Weldon, 85, says the feminist revolution had adverse
implications by ‘halving the male wage, so it no longer supported a family.’
That meant some women had to get jobs, even if they would rather have been at
home with their children. ‘Women had to work to support the family. So for two
in three women, it really was a problem.’
I first pointed this out back in 2007:
Anyhow,
it's interesting that people are finally beginning to pay some attention to the
basic economics of the issue. I expect more than a few people on both sides of
the feminist aisle are going to be very upset when the period from 1970 to the
present is studied.
Feminists will be upset because it will make feminism look like a disaster for women. Working, married non-feminists will be upset because they'll realize that they are essentially working for nothing. Men won't like it either, since they'll realize that they're getting paid less for the same work that their fathers did.
It's interesting how everyone understands that immigrants cause labor prices to fall, but most people don't grasp that a substantial increase in domestic work force participation, by any group, has the same effect.
Feminists will be upset because it will make feminism look like a disaster for women. Working, married non-feminists will be upset because they'll realize that they are essentially working for nothing. Men won't like it either, since they'll realize that they're getting paid less for the same work that their fathers did.
It's interesting how everyone understands that immigrants cause labor prices to fall, but most people don't grasp that a substantial increase in domestic work force participation, by any group, has the same effect.
For the benefit of those who needed me
to type more slowly, I spelled it out in more detail in 2013:
While
immigration too plays a role here, the only significant effect native women
have when they enter the labor force in greater numbers is to depress the price
of labor. Unlike immigrants, they don't bring in new consumption to help
mitigate their wage-depressing effects; the reason real hourly wages peaked in
1973 and have been falling ever since is because that was the year that the
number of men younger than 20 and older than 65 leaving the labor force was
surpassed by educated, middle-class women entering it.
One-third of working class women have always worked. The change brought by feminism is that now middle class and upper middle class married women work as well. And the more women that work, the more women have to work and the less time women who don't work will have with their husbands who support them, because an INCREASE in the SUPPLY of labor necessitates a DECREASE in the PRICE of labor, demand remaining constant.
And to make matters worse, demand does not remain constant, but actually declines, because a woman who works is statistically much less likely to eventually become a wife and mother, and even when she does, she becomes one several years later and has fewer children. This means that feminism is a structural economic failure as it creates a downward-spiraling vicious circle of three easily identifiable revolutions:
One-third of working class women have always worked. The change brought by feminism is that now middle class and upper middle class married women work as well. And the more women that work, the more women have to work and the less time women who don't work will have with their husbands who support them, because an INCREASE in the SUPPLY of labor necessitates a DECREASE in the PRICE of labor, demand remaining constant.
And to make matters worse, demand does not remain constant, but actually declines, because a woman who works is statistically much less likely to eventually become a wife and mother, and even when she does, she becomes one several years later and has fewer children. This means that feminism is a structural economic failure as it creates a downward-spiraling vicious circle of three easily identifiable revolutions:
1.
The increase in the supply of labor causes wages to go down.
This is indisputable in either logical or empirical terms.
2.
Female hypergamy, female independence, and opportunity cost
reduces the marriage rate and the average birth rate, while increased male work
hours and work-related romantic opportunities increases the divorce rate.
These connections are all logically sound and readily observable.
3.
The reduced birth rate has a negative effect on consumption, and
therefore the demand for labor, 20 years before the consequent negative effects
on the supply of labor can help balance it out, putting further negative
pressure on wage rates. This is also indisputable, both logically and
empirically.
