The problem with two-parent is you're a single misstep away from one-parent. Multi-generational and communal households would be more resilient, and easier to accommodate via tax incentives and housing policy.
A multi generational household occurs naturally when grandma and grandpa had a stable two parent households and now mom and dad do too.
Moreover, it's not necessary to force everyone in the same house. My parents and inlaws are within 20 minutes. It's great and since they are both married and happy, there's little family stress and the kids get ample time with both grandparents. God forbid, if anything were to happen to either my wife or I, they would be well taken care of.
Eventually our parents may move in or closer by, but right now, it's nice for everyone to have some separation.
> A multi generational household occurs naturally when grandma and grandpa had a stable two parent households and now mom and dad do too.
More importantly, young people need a reason not to move hundreds or thousands of miles away from their stable household. Investing in community resources, local economies, and infrastructure that promotes health and opportunity are all necessary.
WFH solves this too. RTO policies are anti-family. Hell, unchecked corporate work culture is part of why Japan and Korea's birth rates are so low. Can't be out having babies if you're at the office at all hours.
I think WFH-RTO dimension is orthogonal to unchecked corporate culture. You can have a great work-life balance with RTO (I saw it at Google first-hand in 2010's) and you can have a shitty dawn-to-dusk grinder with WFH (saw it many times since Covid.
Tech companies wouldn't be offering their employees who are too busy to start families the perk of egg freezing if they offered "great work-life balance." They would be offering more flexible part-time work, so that employees could both have children and continue working, instead of putting off having children.
Companies with great work-life balance still offer egg freezing. It is simply an option to the female employees who want to work a lot and postpone childbearing. Having that option doesn't mean other employees don't have a great WLB if they want to go for that.
Even here in the US is tough. I have a "good" job as a developer. My wife still has to work to support a middle class lifestyle and make a median household income. She has to work my off-hours. Doesn't feel like that much of a family when we don't do family activities or have family meals. No wonder others don't want this sort of "good" life. The single guys I know are doing so much better financially and overall. Risk of financial ruin in divorcebor child support is a major factor in the US as well. Why take on that risk? If the environment is hostile, it's no wonder marriage declines, birth rate declines, etc.
I've thought about this a lot. My personal theory is that when young leave their home communities to seek opportunity elsewhere, that experience changes them. Afterward, to the extent they return, they rejuvenate their community. To the extent they don't, the community stagnates. The reality in the US is mostly the latter. This also created a self-perpetuating cycle, since who wants to go back to their stagnant little corner of the world after getting a taste of cosmopolitan life?
So all that said, I imagine a hugely beneficial policy would be one where young people who leave for college would get assistance paying off student debt if and to the extent they return to their community afterward.
every student should spend a year in a foreign country. i spend a year in a US highschool and later volunteered for a student organization that helps students get internships in a foreign country. it's also possible to spend a term or a year to study abroad.
it would be good to make at least one of these opportunities available to more students.
I honestly blame exurbia. I “left home” to just be able to walk to buy groceries. I doubt I would have left if my lifestyle choices were available at home.
Monoculture is efficient only for the group building the infrastructure.
> A multi generational household occurs naturally when grandma and grandpa had a stable two parent households and now mom and dad do too.
Huh? My sister and I both live more than a thousand miles away from our stable, married parents that we are on good terms with. We went where our work took us and then met and married people in that area. My sister lives several hundred miles away from her in-laws, and my in-laws (also still married) only moved to be near us when they were no longer capable of living independently (there is no way with all of their health issues that they could take care of our kids).
This goes back a generation as well, though the distances were smaller (~400 miles of driving between me and my grandparents when I was growing up).
I think the point is more that multi-generational households would occur naturally, but as you alluded modern society gets in the way. I have a similar situation as you. It's interesting to imagine what policies would have incentivized us to settle down nearer our parents. Like, what would have made that a palatable option?
My sister is in academia, so she went where she could get a tenure-track position. Four months after I graduated college, I had exactly one job offer, it was on the opposite coast.
After I accepted my job far away, I did hear back from a company closer (but by no means close) to my parents, it was a one year contract for less than half what I was making in a permanent position. I would have taken a pay-cut to be closer to my parents (particularly since my SO at the time refused to relocate to California), but a non-permanent position for $30k/year just didn't seem like a wise life-choice.
I was able to infer that from your original comment, but the point is that neither my sister nor I can reach my parents in a single day of driving[1], and my wife can't reach her in-laws in a single day of driving. My in-laws are very close now, but at this point we are caring for them more than they are caring for our kids.
1: I'm considering a full day of driving as 12 hours here. Different people tend to disagree with this number in either direction.
i see your 1000+ miles and i give you 4000+ miles.
the question is, why is that? you said it yourself, you had one good job offer. what do we need to change that you would get better job offers at home?
in china the culture is that a young couple moves in with the husbands parents who often prepare/build their house with that in mind. (in simple terms, the master bedroom is for the couple, the grandparents move to a smaller room). the grandparents help take care of the grandchildren, and later the children take care of their parents.
but even there this is breaking apart. young people move across the country to get good jobs. sometimes the parents follow them. or they leave the children with the grandparents, sometimes not seeing them and their own children more than once a year.
> the question is, why is that? you said it yourself, you had one good job offer. what do we need to change that you would get better job offers at home?
Short of forcing a company to hire me, I'm not sure what can be done. There were no lack of jobs close to home (I basically went into the same profession as my dad, after all), just a lack of people who wanted to hire me specifically.
My in-laws did move, but as mentioned only after their health declined. Prior to that they would visit regularly.
My parents have so many reasons for not moving (Of course they want to see their grandchildren; they fly out 2-3 times a year and we visit every summer):
1. My dad only retired a year ago, and he still occasionally works on a contract basis
2. Which kid do they move to be close to; me or my sister? I'm on the west coast, she is in flyover country.
3. Having lived in the area for over 30 years they have many close friends and are actively involved in the local community.
4. Moving to either me or my sister would put them much further away from my maternal grandmother, who is in her 90s (right now only ~400 miles away from them).
> Moreover, it's not necessary to force everyone in the same house. My parents and inlaws are within 20 minutes.
I'm in a similar position, and it's been a lifesaver. When our first child was ~6 months old, my wife had a gallstone attack at 11:30 at night, and my parents were able to be there in minutes, so we could get to the ER without waking our daughter up and bringing to her to a hospital in the middle of the night. I don't even want to think about how much harder that would have been without nearby parents—and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Yeah... my parents moved to us when we moved to a place we could afford housing. And this is what I mean by 'nuclear families beget extended families'. If you have a close family, they will want to be together. My parents knew we could never live where we grew up. Thus, they made plans to follow us as (1) we are a young family and I (the sole breadwinner) needs to be in a place where I can work and buy a house and (2) they are older and have made their money and are more adaptable. As it stands, most people can do this because most parents are having two children. My brother moved to another area, but his wife's family (and hers is much bigger than ours... layer upon layer of nuclear families to back them up) is there, so as it stands, we are both well covered by family.
Moreover, it's not necessary to force everyone in the same house. My parents and inlaws are within 20 minutes. It's great and since they are both married and happy, there's little family stress and the kids get ample time with both grandparents. God forbid, if anything were to happen to either my wife or I, they would be well taken care of.
Eventually our parents may move in or closer by, but right now, it's nice for everyone to have some separation.