Monday, April 25, 2016

Most of the Recession’s Stay-at-Home Dads Are Going Back to Work

This is an interesting article about the househusband and housedad returning back to the labor force. 

According to the article, the percentage of U.S. families with children under 18 and married parents featured an employed mother and a father who was either unemployed or not in the labor force keeps dropping for the fifth year in 2015 since the rising during 2007-09. The share of married-couple families with a working mom and a nonworking dad rose during the 2007-09 recession from 4.8% in 2005 and 2006 to 7.4% in 2009 and 2010. And last year, it went back to the long-run average, 5.3%. 

Actually I have heard of the tendency that many men leave the labor force market back home during the recession time, around 2008. Actually it's good to see them gradually getting back to the labor force because it can be seen as a signal of economic recovery. Also, at the same time, as what we have talked about in class, I guess we probably can see the decrease of unemployment rate because more people get into the labor force. 

What's more, I find the comments under the article is interesting which shows that many dad left the workforce is not only because the recession but also because they want to spend more time with family. This can be seen as a changing of social ideology. 

Here's the link: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/04/22/most-of-the-recessions-stay-at-home-dads-are-going-back-to-work/ 

5 comments:

  1. I think this is a good sign of economy recovery, indicating there are more available job positions, and the pay is good enough to attract people to get back to the labor force.
    As for the spend time with family part, I think it’s partly due to the increase in female wages, and change in social norm.

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  2. I personally know fathers who have gone back to work since the recession. I wonder if these jobs are better or worse than the jobs they held before. This would be an important statistic to track

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  3. Going based off what Charlie commented on, my parents very close friend has been a stay at home dad for about 15 years and now has to re-enter the work force. Prior to becoming solely a full time dad, he worked at an environmental plant which required a few different licenses that are now expired. This makes me wonder how many people are in a similar situation where they basically have to take pay cuts in order to get another job more quickly.

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  4. Lower unemployment rates for both the U.S. economy in general and stay at home dads is a clear sign of recovery, though I wonder what the rate for stay at home moms looks like now. It's possible that both parents could be employed now, or perhaps they could have switched the roles.

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  5. Looking at some slides from the U.S. Census Bureau, it's interesting to watch the uptick in "Percent of Adults Aged 25 to 34 Who are the Child of the Household". From 2009-2011, the percentage of Men in this age range living with their parents shot up 3%, while there was actually a decrease in Women in this age range living with their parents.

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