[jakelazaroff]

To whom is the paycheck made out? In a relationship with a large pay disparity, there is a financial dependence and vast power difference between the involved parties.

If your partner started to abuse you, would you rather be the homemaker or the person whose name is on the paychecks?

[fineline]

For the individual spouse there may be some disadvantage (at least in terms of risk) to being the homemaker. But for the aggregate of family households it's not so clear. A previous HN comment speculated that much of the economic gain from increased female workforce participation - or more accurately double-income households - flows to capital, as it increases both labor supply and overall consumer demand, leading to downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on price of consumer goods (plus huge demand for child care). By contrast the value delivered by a stay-at-home spouse (of either gender) flows largely to the family. Not a very PC analysis for either the "left" or the "right". Wish I could find the original HN comment, or see further research.

[LyndsySimon]

I understand what you're saying and agree with you in general, but I think you're missing a large part of the picture. In general, women have far better options for ending a marriage than men - as of 2006, 3.6% of alimony recipients were men, for example.

> If your partner started to abuse you, would you rather be the homemaker or the person whose name is on the paychecks?

In that circumstance, I'd rather be a woman. While it's very difficult to find anything resembling an unbiased source, it seems apparent that it is substantially more difficult for a man to seek law enforcement intervention as a victim of domestic abuse.

[jakelazaroff]

> In general, women have far better options for ending a marriage than men - as of 2006, 3.6% of alimony recipients were men, for example.

Isn't that in large part because of the employment and income disparities between men and women, though? If women are employed less often and generally make less when they do, it makes sense that they're more often the recipient of alimony.

> In that circumstance, I'd rather be a woman. While it's very difficult to find anything resembling an unbiased source, it seems apparent that it is substantially more difficult for a man to seek law enforcement intervention as a victim of domestic abuse.

My comment was actually only regarding homemaking vs. computer programming, not how those occupations are gendered. The parent said "How does it pay less? You get to have a place​ to live, eat, sleep, all for free" — all I meant was that if there's e.g. domestic abuse, all else being equal, it's far better to be the partner who actually makes money than the partner who relies on the other's income.

[hasenj]

At work you are also a slave to your boss, in a sense. If your boss started to abuse you, wouldn't​ you rather be a home maker so that your partner deals with the day to day shittiness of having to be in a job?

The way to not be afraid of abuse it's to have a support network. For example, extended family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, etc. This applies to you whether you're an employee or a homemaker.

As a human you are always dependant on other people. Part of being a responsible adult is figuring out how to cooperate with people.

[jakelazaroff]

> The way to not be afraid of abuse it's to have a support network.

Your support network is significantly more flexible if you have access to money. You haven't (and I suspect can't) made any real argument that there's not a vast power imbalance in a relationship where one party makes the most or all of the money.

[reader5000]

If you think spending power is the only relevant form of power in a marriage you are incorrect.

[jakelazaroff]

I don't, but it's the only one this thread is discussing.