Dual-Income Trap Debate

No. Absolutely wrong.Homes are much larger now than in 1955. Cars are being purchased with far more (expensive) features, and they are driven for fewer miles before being "upgraded". We eat out much more. Even when we eat in, we eat more luxurious meals. We buy Frappuccinos daily, we buy clothing much more frequently, we impulse shop significantly more, we utilize medical services much more frequently, we take far more, and more luxurious vacations, we rack up l

Anyone else think this is a consequence of households converging on dual-income due to flat earnings vs cost of living?

Mine is a comment that requires context, yours is the low-effort.For example, prior to you being born, a family could survive on a single wage (typically the husband's) while the other parent raised the children. But societies were convinced that for our freedom, both parents should work, or be able to. And now you can barely even afford rent with two wages in many places, and often not afford both the rent and the family.

People have been lamenting the difficulty of making ends meet for as long as humanity has been around and I'm not so sure that today it is truly any less possible to finance a home and family with just one earner than it was a generation ago. I certainly don't think it was easily affordable on one income a generation ago as seems to be the perception. A lot of the reason for two earner families today is because of the fact that more women are able to work due to a more equitable marketplace for

How much of this is due to the growth in labor force in general and the prevalence of dual income families. See: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/data/facts-over-time/women-i....If you go further back (50s - 60s), it was very common for a household to survive on a single income. Even 30-40 ye

When women started having careers that lasted a lifetime, costs increased. Initially those dual income families had lots of money and could buy fancier things, but then prices (specifically housing) increased to meet what could afford to be spent.And now we're in a state where you have to have two parents working, and outsource upbringing the kids.

This is likely one of the unintended side effects of 1) women entering the workforce 2) higher retirement age. With double the supply, it meant you could no longer raise a family on a single income, because the money is shared between more people.

> It used to be one member of a family could earn enough for the entire family to live well on. Now, both parents are working and they’re struggling.It is a small price to pay for women in workforce.

This was shown. When household incomes increased as women working became the norm, households had more to spend on housing, which meant house prices ballooned. Much of the rest of the money was taken by things like childcare, gardening, cleaners, etc.This had the end result that those who want to stay at home can't, society is now based arround two decent income salaries.

Now that women can work, ratcheting effects of dual-income households being able to spend more mean that generally two incomes are required to keep up the same standard of living, so now women must work. This does not seem like an improvement to me. Before, women who wanted to work could not, now women who want to stay at home with their kids can not.