Time was when a home did need only one working parent (that is, working to bring in money). If things are always getting better, and they seem to be (in the developed world, e.g. the Internet, etc.), what changed?
Recently answered in detail on State Star Codex. Basically, two-income families are competing against each other for housing in good areas, driving up prices, and seeing no benefit in disposable income.
And a good school is the sort of school that those families want to send their children to. I don’t know anything about how high school education is organised in the US — why is the market not supplying this need?
Part is what TheAncientGeek says, part is that present-day children have higher living standards than children a while ago, and if they were OK with earlier children’s living standard (and didn’t care about status signalling) they could probably get it with one parent’s income (see also).
(Both Mr. and Mrs. Money Moustache and Julia Wise and Jeff Kaufman are raising children on a tight budget.)
By providing free childcare, or by paying people to be stay at home moms, or both or something else?
By improving working conditions and monetary value so that a home needs only one working parent.
Time was when a home did need only one working parent (that is, working to bring in money). If things are always getting better, and they seem to be (in the developed world, e.g. the Internet, etc.), what changed?
Recently answered in detail on State Star Codex. Basically, two-income families are competing against each other for housing in good areas, driving up prices, and seeing no benefit in disposable income.
SSC is sceptical about whether the effect claimed in the book he’s reviewing is big enough to account for the problem.
Ok, now taboo “good area”.
Area with good school.
“Good schools” is a euphemism.
And a good school is the sort of school that those families want to send their children to. I don’t know anything about how high school education is organised in the US — why is the market not supplying this need?
http://lesswrong.com/lw/jra/innovations_lowhanging_fruits_on_the_demand_or/amd5
The goodness of a school is not a property of the school’s organizational structure or teaching methodology so much as it is a property of the students who attend the school (“a ghetto/barrio/alternative name for low-class-hell-hole isn’t a physical location, its people”). Discrimination on the basis of anything but money is illegal, so good schools are either public schools in areas in which it is expensive to live, or private schools which cannot be attended without paying expensive tuition.
Part is what TheAncientGeek says, part is that present-day children have higher living standards than children a while ago, and if they were OK with earlier children’s living standard (and didn’t care about status signalling) they could probably get it with one parent’s income (see also).
(Both Mr. and Mrs. Money Moustache and Julia Wise and Jeff Kaufman are raising children on a tight budget.)
Well, that’s certainly ambitious...