For the first time since June Cleaver donned pearls and aprons in the 1950s, the percentage of women choosing to work outside the home has been flat to down for several years running. Not coincidentally, the number of meals purchased at restaurants per person has stopped growing too, for the longest sustained stretch in the 23 years NPD Group has tracked the number.
Women's participation rate in the paid U.S. labor force topped out at just above 60% in 1999 and again in 2001 but has fallen since then, according to the Labor Department.
.....For restaurants, it means an end to a demographic gold mine that fed decades of growth. ...."It's fascinating because it's counterintuitive," said John Glass, restaurant analyst for CIBC World Markets....
by Jack Neff. Read more Here
I found this one interesting because just as it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet, women in the workforce is going down? Why?
One statistic that I have always found thought-provoking (and found to be true in my own life) is that when a woman goes off to work, unless she is making a very good salary, most of the time it costs her more to work than to stay home. Think about it...gas prices (see the previous blog post for a quote about that), convenience foods and take out meals (as noted here), clothing fit to wear to work, possibly dry cleaning expenses to go with office clothes, and then there's daycare/babysitting expenses. Your taxes and tithes also go up when you work. All of those little things that an at home mom can take care of have to be dealt with by someone, and sometimes one needs to pay for those tasks to be completed (gardening/landscaping, laundry, cooking, etc.).
Perhaps with the cost of living, it has gotten to be too expensive to work?
A friend of mine and I were discussing though the fact that while restaurant meals are on the decline, take out at the grocery store (such as from the deli) is on the rise. We wonder...is it because few families really know how to cook? Or, should I say, cook well?
I wonder. Any thoughts?
2 comments:
You're right about one thing. A lot of women really don't know how to cook. I didn't learn how until after I was already married, having been raised by a mom who worked full time and didn't cook much. You're also right about the hidden costs associated with that second "income". I think if most families took a hard look at it, more moms would go home.
I know that I learned how to cook as an exchange student when I was 15...here I was supposed to be off on some global community cultural exchange (we even did the stereotypical "sitting around the campfire singing kum-bay-ah" with guitars during our orientation LOL), and what I learned most was an awe and respect for a woman (my host mother) who could cook from scratch primarily with self-raised and home grown food. My own mom cooked somewhat (more than some of my friends knew how to when they got married) but she worked and didn't really like to cook much. When I was an exchange student, that was the first time I ever ate fresh baked bread (instead of wonderbread), or foods seasoned to perfection with more than just salt and pepper, not to mention canning. My dh thanks God for my time of learning at the feet of an experienced home cook! :-)
I even noticed a few years ago that there were frozen pancakes in the grocery store...and so I asked someone who was buying them if they were any good and she said, "They're alright. I just don't know how to make pancakes." My son was in shock because since he was 7 he has been then pancake chef in our family, and he has pretty much taken over breakfast at our house because he likes to cook...but I guess this is what happens when a generation of moms decided not to teach these skills to the next generation.
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