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Welcome the deep into the pages
We're diving into a really fascinating stack of sources
Today it's from an economist who uh pretty bravely confronts that cultural myth th hahait it all she offers this
You know called hard economic
Look at the constraints women face trying to build a happy successlife
Even such an essential perspective
Really our mission today as i think to move pass those narratives of just personal failure here
And really try to understand the structural the economic
Even um biological forces that kind of stack the odds against women
Yes
The core argument here is pretty simple
Actually women are rational economic agents
They're making calculated choices to maximize their lives
But and this is the key
They're operating within constraints that often lead directly to exhaustion not fulfililment right
And i found the author's opening stories had relatable
She talks about this like two hcommmuunshe had a marriage
That was struggling
And just this constant dreaming feeling that her male colleagues had more time like their days ststmore this only four hours or something and the sources
They show that feeling wasn't paranoia
It was mathematical fact
Really exactly it was the math we are going to pack
Why um the division of gender roles hasn't really converged at home
Will look at how changes in divorce law
Maybe inadvertently push women into the workforce
And why this whole pursuit of having it all now just leads to deplication
So so by the end of this deep dive
Hopefully you the listener will have a clear framework
Wait a mamaimized with the sources call your personal utility function
Even with these heavy structural barriers in place
Okay
Let's unpack that starting with a core premise this modern bottle neck and feminious revolution
It promised professionally quality right right
And women definitely gain huge economic agency in the workplace
But where did the promise stall out what happened at home
Well
That's the crux of it
The revolution was incomplete
The division of labor is never fully converged
So while women entered the workforforce
You know in massive the culltural pressure
Eeconomic pressure for men to take on significantly more home production
It just wasn't really there
And the inevitable result was well unsustainable demands on women's time forcing them to you know when the bread and baak it too as the same same goes and the ourources frain these big life commitments choosing a job a partner
Deciding on kids as deals like you put in time and effort for some kind of pay off
But the economists here argues that for women
These deals are often um unfairly labor intensies
Yeah
That's where the paradox really hits if we're being stricicrarational economic enenrate
The higher earnner in a household with specializing market work
The lower earnner specializes at home
Makes that sure specialization
But we see women who are the primary y brewinwinners and hederosexual marriages still doing almost twice as much
Cooking in cleaning as their male spouses
Wow twice as much
Even when they earn more exactly
It's the very definition of a failed deal economically speaking
It completely violtes that rational specialization model okay
Wait
If they are rational economic agents like the source says why accept that deal is that really a choice or as a more like cultural pressure just dressed up as rational economics
I think it's definitely the latter
The choices heavily constrained right by cultural norms
Biological realities get into those
But the outcome is undeniable
Women are left with as a source puts it just exhaustion right
Because they effecvely have two full time time jobs and the only way to manage that is to run down down their own ysical and mental capital
It's not sustainable okay
So let's track back
Historically
Then help us understand how we got into this situation
We often hear about feminism cultural liberation
Being the main drivers for women entering the workforce made tweneth century
But what does the economic data point to what was the big structural catalyst
What the data points pretstrongly to a really fundamental change in family law
Specifically the rise of unilateral divorce
You ilatatal divorce meaning no faldivorce ce ofone person could initiated exactly historically marriage offered women a kind of specialization security
The wife specialized in home production managing the kids
The house
The social life
Often no moving cities for the husband's career
And that was seen as an invest in the husband's career
Which in return offered financial stability
Okay
Sort of imimplicic contract
A contract yes
When unililateral divorce law started rolling out across states
And then globally
That contract was fundamentally broken um
Because
Because security vanished precisely unknow a little divorcement
Men could relatively easily walk away from the marriage taking their paychecks with them and women who had specialized entirely in unpaid home production
They were often financially devastated after divorce
So the sources are quite clear the shift wasn't primarily about immediate cultural liberation
Though that was happening to a huge driver was financial souff protection
Women realized they needed a paycheck
That would always be there
You know even if the husband wasn't
That's
That's profound a reframes the narrative quite a bit
And you see this reflected immediately in education stats right research shows women started turning college degrees
That actually outpacing men right in the wake of these divorce laws spreading
Yes
Exactly it was like an urgent rush to build personal human capital
Their own safety net
Wow
And this idea is backed up by some really fascinating data from what's called the collaterialized marriage research
Collateralized marriage
What does that mean collateral like you know security and alone
The research found that couples with more substantial assets like a highly valued home significant savings
Okay
They are actually more likely to maintain a traditional division of labor
Really
Why because the assets served as a kind of collateroral
They offered the wife more financial protection
If the marriage ended
So it reduced the immediate pressure on her to jump into the market full time just for security
The marriage itself felt more secure financially
So these stability of the marriage deal they offetly linked to the proviprovided by assets
And when the default security mechanism of marriage just being married
Weakened with easier divorce women had to become their own security
That's the economic conclusion essentially
If a bottom fell out of the traditional marriage economy for many women
So the feminist revolution was at least in part driven by the feconomic reality shift a significant part
Yes
It forced women to prioritize their own careers ers most most regardless of what their domestic partner was contributing just as a baseline security measure okay
Ffanforfora bit through the seventies and eighties things may be looked promising for this two career family idea
Yeah
Helped along by what some call the engines of liberation
You know diwasashmmicrowaes frozen meals right stuff that cut houhouseld ld our time right libration technology exactly
But then the nineties hit and suddenly holmes especially parenting seems to get exponentially harder
What happened
Then Yeah
That's when we entered what the author terms the regret race
The regret race okay
Intense of parenting just sword especially among college educated mothers who are also the ones most likely to be in these high pressure jobs get this the amount of time
These specific mothers spent on direct interaction with their children nearly doubled between one hundred
Ty ninety
Three Two
Two thousand
Three a single decade doubled
That's a stagerering ing rease house
It was a huge cultural shift
We moved away from that sort of doctor spock era
You know where formula feeding was fine
Kids could entertain themselves more they cry it out
Right to this new model of intensive mothering
Extended breast feeding became the gold standard highly curated playdates hhpervigglance about screen time a constant focus on developing the child's human capital from infancy um h
It wasn't just care it was development exactly that's the crucicipart this new model made child care feel fundamentally non outsource sible
You can outsource claiming sure
But you can't outsource the perceive need for constant direct maternal human capital development
If you believe your child's entire future success depends on you being there reading coaching organizing and richman activities right the anxiety itself bees a huge time and energy dream asmassive dream on utility
Yes
So let's connect this back to the overall time budget the sources show the real cost of this squeeze
Don't they like the time saved on housework from those seventies appliances
Yeah
The decrease in housework time
It almost exactly offset the increase ed market market work time for women so so two too balced ed more reless okay
So far ar so good
对
The massive surge and time spent specifically on childcare
That's completely unaccounted for that equation
It's extra time that had to come from somewhere meaning sleep leasure self
Self care
Exactly it means women are essentially working two full shifts market work and this intensive childcare home management shift
They're burning the candle down on both ends
And this creates with the author calls the squeeze your peak career investment years usually thirties in early forties
Right when you try to climb a letter precisely colliding directly with peak home responsibility ties yresponbbility is young kids needing that intense apparenting and often crippingly high childcare cost the math just doesn't work
It's unsustainable
Okay
So if the system is raked
If the math doesn't add up given these constraints um
What can an individual woman actually do how do she regain some agency
They ofto talks about levelling up instead of just leaning in all the time
It really thinking like a hybrirational economist offer here
It really demands that you get crystal clear on your personal utility function
Utility function yeah like what makes you happy
Essentially yes
Think of it as your personal video game score for life measuring happiness
Security fulfillment whatever matters to you
It means consciouly priortising what your future self five ten twenty years from now will achieve not just chasing short term payoff for what society pressures you to achieve today
And this framework it forces us to confront a really crucial biological constraint dozen tic time factor
Absolutely our reproductive capital basically the biological window for having children easily dereciates rapidly especially after the mid thirties meanwhile our human capital
Our career value
Our earning power that generally appreciates over time especially early to mid career that asymetry is huge
It's the single most unique time constrained women face compared to men economically speaking
And it fundamentally shapes major life decisions
对
So the sources frame something like egg freezing for instance
Yeah not as some kind of frivileous lifestyle choice for the rich
But as a potentially strategic economic move
It's like buying time
You're trying to save and grow your reproductive capital
While you simultaneously invest in your rereciating human capital
Your career
It's an attempt to decouple those two intense pressuuum 对不对
对个
It's a really different way to look at it okay
So levelling up then is about making these bigger structural changes not just tinkerring the edges tasstly
It's the difference between like local optimization and global maxmization
Local optimization is trying to pack the lunch box five minutes faster each morning it helps maybe
But it doesn't change the fundamental problem
Global maximization is changing the entire system around you
So the authors own example getting a divorce moving to a completely different city right she moves somewhere with a shorter commute lower childcare cost and a better community support system
Those moves made her life significantly easier
Even though they sound drastic these big global moves changing
Location may be changing your job sector sometimes changing the relationship
Itself they twet k the constraint walls entirely they can lead to massive long term utility gains that tweeking your morning routine never will okay
Let's apply this rational framework to relationship them here because the author makes a really powerful maybe in controversial case
Here yes
She argues that choosing a partner is arguably more impactful to your long term economic utility
Than choosing your career
Yes
But we usually rely almost entirely on well love primal instincts and that's the classic failure point
According to this economic view
Love is necessary absolutely
But it's not sufficficifor for masuficizing long term utility especially in this constrained environment transanslate econconomst jargon
She basically says love is the episode
It's long like the math siyeah
It's that small sufficiview variable maybe the spark
But it's not the main factor
That determines the success of the join enterprice of life
So if love isn't enough
What should we be looking for
If we're evaluating a partner based on their potential economic impact on our life or utility
The advice is stuck
You have to evaluate potential partners based on their anequote demonstrated capacity to excel in the joint enterprise of running a household and raising children demonstrated capacity
Yeah
Not just potential
Not just promises
Exactly not just attraction or their job title or how much they earn do
They actually do things
Otherwise you risk any up with that higher turning procedupartpartner who magically just can't seem to pack the kids lunches or or figure out the summer camp n ups forcing you write back into that exhausting double job regardless of their income precisely okay
But what about existing relationships can the deal be renegotiated
The source talks about framing time is utility and outsourcing
Yes
Outsourcing becomes absolutely sential to this rational analysis
Think about it this way
Every time you choose not to hire someone for a task cleaning laundering meal proper
Whatever you are making a conscious choice to hire yourself for that job
Myself at what wage at the wage of zero usually or worse at the opportunity cost of your own high value time
If you're hourly wage in the market
Your human capital value is significantly higher than the cost of outsourcing an hour of domestic labor then doing it
Yourself is often financially irrational
You're burning highly valuable human capital on a relatively low value task that could be bought
Which leads to a kind of surprising piece of financial advice in the sources
Yeah
This idea of consumption smoothing taking on debt
When you're already feeling squeezed
How do that make sense
It sounds countertutive
I know
But the goal is maximizing long term utility
Which includes sannity and career trajectory
Especially if you're on a steep career growth path meaning your income is likely to rise
Significantly in the future taking on some manageable debt now to pay for things like high quality child care or even sourcing household pasks or even outorering take up ofoften buyou time and energy
Exactly it buys you time and sanatity
During that intense houeeze per your future wealthy
Yourself can likely repary that that much more easily you're essentially using debt as a tool to smooth your consumption of time and energy across your life span
You're investing in your physical and mental health
Now you can keep functioning and growing your career
You're anatury the sources argue perstrongly is not negotiable
It's a critical input to your long term utility
Wow Okay
So the ultimate take away here feels incredibly validating almost if your life feels impossibly hard
Especially for working mothers
It's not necessarily a personal failure
It might just be that the math doesn't add up
Exactly the structural constraints particularly around time in childcare expectations often penalized women's time dispproportionately
We've really explore the economic crationale behind those constraints
You know
Needing financial security
Driving career investment to this explosion of time intense appatato and understanding these constraints really seeing them clearly from allow us
Us to find what economists call are constrained maximum the best possible outcome within the existing rules
And crucially it allows us to stop blaming women's choices for their deep letion
For their exhaustion
The real fight then becomes about systemic change
Which raises i think a really important motion
We constantly tell women they need to change right leaning more be more aggressive negotiate harder be more 嗯嗯的好的
Like men essentially to climb the latter
But why aren't we asking more often what about the system
What about the men
Why don't they need to change to accommodate reality
That's an excellent point
Especially when you look at the actual value
Women often bring i was struck by this data point in the sources about negotiation research
Found that when men negotiated only with other men
There were something like two hundred and fifty percent more likely to fail to reach any agreement compared to pairs of women negotiating wow two million and fifty percent more likely to deadlock ah ah something the collaborative negotiation trades
That women often bring actually create huge corporate value by increasing successful agreements
Why are we constantly telling women to shed those valuable trades and become more cut throat
It's a fundamental paradox
Isisn't it we seem to be actively penalalizing the very traits that demonstrably benefit organiztional success
Often by categorizing them as nonpromotable tasks
You know the internal consensus building the menting
Keeping things running smoothly behind the scenes
The glue work
Yeah
The office house work exactly we need firms
We need policymakers
And yes we need men to really leeninto into to recognize and properly reward those unique valuable skills
And to design career pabs and work structures
That actually accommodate the realities of life
Especially parenting rather than just demanding women
Somehow transform themselves until less effective
Maybe more conflict proversions of themselves just to fit into a system that wasn't designed for them in the first place
That is definitely a deep die for you to consider thanks for listening
And 'll see an next episode
