The Danger of Shortchanging Parents
In 1920, following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, the lawyer and feminist Crystal Eastman turned her attention to the future. The new goal of the feminist movement, she argued, should be to ensure that women are free to pursue careers outside of child-rearing—but also to guarantee that if women chose to focus on parenting, their labors would be “recognized by the world as work, requiring a definite economic reward.” A century later, American women have made considerable progress toward being able to pursue the careers they want. But parents still aren’t compensated for their work—far from it.
Raising a child costs parents a quarter of a million dollars, excluding college tuition. On top of these direct costs, parents who reduce their hours or drop out of the workforce to care for children forgo income, retirement savings, Social Security benefits, and wage growth, because of lost job experience. A 26-year-old teacher who leaves her job for five years to care for children stands to lose more than $700,000 in the process.
Not having kids, though, with a single doctor appointment. Around the world, women have responded to these circumstances rationally—by working more and having fewer children. The total fertility rate is at an in the United States. It is below replacement level—the rate needed to replace the existing population as people die, or about 2.1 children per couple—in . It is declining pretty much everywhere else. And although the United Nations fertility in the developed world to recover slightly over the next 80 years, other suggest that birth rates will drop further in many advanced economies, including America, and faster globally.
