Women and Child Rearing

The Australian really is Australia's number one newspaper. No wonder the Left hates it so much. Henry Ergas writes:

Mothers have chosen that option in droves. Of women aged 25 to 44 who work part-time, 60 per cent do so to care for children; and 70 per cent of working mothers with children under the age of five work part-time.

All that contrasts sharply with Europe's highly regulated labour markets. There, restrictions on working conditions prevent the private sector from creating the jobs women want.

Public spending and public employment have therefore accounted for almost all the gains women have made, at an unsustainable cost in terms of tax burdens and stunted productivity.

No wonder, then, that in a recent survey of women's labour market performance two left-leaning American academics, Harvard professor Torben Iversen and Yale professor Frances Rosenbluth, conclude "female participation rates tend to be lower in countries with strong unions, while in economies with fluid labour markets women are better able to compete on an equal footing with men".

Two quick lessons here. The drive for women to have children and care for them is nearly universal. Women are naturally driven to maintain close contact with their children and trying to thwart that drive through public policy or feminist propaganda is futile. The second point is that free markets are more friendly towards women and their choices than unfree economies.