[watwut]

It is not just irrational association.

When the relationship goes bad, being homemaker is massive disadvantage. It is not just money lost by staying at home, it is making it super hard to find any job after being at home for long (and plus having kids dependent on you). Even when they stay together in mutually resentful relationship, it quickly becomes his money that she is wasting rather then our money.

Plus, men die. And if he dies and she did not had a job for years, it gets pretty bad.

The domestic violence rates go up with female earning power and down with female unemployment. It is opposite for males relative earnings. Partly it shifts power in the family and partly it simply allows her to leave.

That is not even speaking about male resentment from having to work while she is chilling at home. Because not every male is winning in a job that he loves, plenty of them are working jobs they dislike for sociopaths bosses.

The single income arrangement does not have to turn badly. But when it turns badly, it is very bad. And the guys who are intentionally looking to make someone dependent on them so that they can have upper hand are favoring this arrangement - making it more vulnerable situation then it would if only honest guys would be interested in that.

[war1025]

So then this suffers from the same issue that for instance public education does: A focus on the bottom tier to the detriment of and middle and top.

The bad outcomes are potentially very bad, so society disincentivises single income households to the detriment of the large swath of people that may actually benefit from it.

[watwut]

I mean, then there is social isolation and routine of being at home. Even at bottom and top, many women are simply not cut for that. They don't like that role, they do get depressed and don't perform well. I remember reading that being at home is a risk factor for female alcoholism (another is working in male dominated job and drinking along men).

Like, not everyone was happy at lockdown and it seemed to me easier situation then being stay at home. (Due to working with others remotely, many people having same shared experience. )

And the bottom here did not used to be small nor rare. The really bad stuff about abuse still happens, through less often. And then, divorces happen more often. With single income, they would be more rare, but that marriage will be more of a trap.