No American Housewifes

the phenomenom of capable and averagely inteligent midlle class women, most which even had all oportunityes to get an education and find a decent job, chosing to stay home and be housewifes is probbably one of the most endemic aspects of American culture, rarely seen in any other part of the developed western world

would it be possible and how so, to set up a plausable alternate timline in wich this trend does not happen, and what would this do to American culture, politics and economy?
 
This phenomenon isn't as widespread as the media and the popular lore would have you believe. While it is true that many women do exit the workforce for a few years to have children, most eventually return, and the majority of married women do work, even if only part time.

I'd say there are other regions of the industrialized world, say, Japan and Southern Europe, where stay-at-home housewives are equally or more common.
 
As far as I could tell by the US election, they tax families instead of individuals. That makes it less attractive to work for the one earning less. This is especially true with a progressive tax rather then a flat tax.

So a individual tax system and a flat tax would do this.
 

Hendryk

Banned
The stay-at-home wife was always more an ideal than reality. It came closest to becoming the norm in the 1950s, but even then it was mostly an upper- and middle-class phenomenon. Working-class households needed dual income to make ends meet, and in rural ones women had been working alongside their husbands all along.

The June Cleaver thing was, in a way, socially normative. It presented a view of family life and strongly implied that this was how one was supposed to live to be a good American. Since then there has been an enduring tradition of TV series and movies about ideal family life, and if you can find a way to butterfly that away, I think it will change the American families' self-perception to a considerable extent.
 
As far as I could tell by the US election, they tax families instead of individuals. That makes it less attractive to work for the one earning less.
So, you mean single people are taxed more than one half of a couple? That's hardly fair...
 
So, you mean single people are taxed more than one half of a couple? That's hardly fair...

I don't know how the US taxs system work but I keep hearing the phrase "..for a household." Weather it is the household making above 250 000 dollars that should pay extra tax or it gets some rebate check.

If it indeed tax households rather then individuals and one of the individual happens to make a lot of money, it would put the other one into a very high tax bracket making a low-paying job less attractive.
 
So, you mean single people are taxed more than one half of a couple? That's hardly fair...

No, it's more that the rules are different if you're married or unmarried. I'm pretty sure (at least in Washington) that your income tax is calculated differently if you're married and if you have kids or not.
 
The American tax system is complicated and irregular, if viewed by Europeans with a VAT system on goods.

Americans in the low tax brackets pay about 15%; those with higher incomes pay 28-33%, on a ramp-up formula. Households are viewed together; husband and wife combined, if they choose to file a joint income tax return. If the primary wage-earner is in the high bracket, then the income from the low earner is still taxed at the high rate, if they file a joint return. Now, the couple can file separate returns. The problem is that deductions, for children, get divided out, causing both to fall into higher tax brackets.

The bottom line: High incomes, close to being the same, separate returns can help. Big differences in income, joint returns are almost universally better.
 
But do the system encurage or discurage work outside the home even if there is a large pay gap?
 
the phenomenom of capable and averagely inteligent midlle class women, most which even had all oportunityes to get an education and find a decent job, chosing to stay home and be housewifes is probbably one of the most endemic aspects of American culture, rarely seen in any other part of the developed western world

would it be possible and how so, to set up a plausable alternate timline in wich this trend does not happen, and what would this do to American culture, politics and economy?

The idea of the housewife or stay-at-home mum is actually somewhat more widespread than you state. Many nations, such as Australia where I'm from, have far lower female labour force participation than the USA. I'm not sure about the exact statistics back in the 1950's, but nowadays I am aware that the most common set-up in the USA is for mothers of school-age children to work full-time. Here in Australia the most common set-up is the mother staying at home full-time until the youngest child goes to primary (elementary) school at around 5-6 years old and then to work part-time. After that a full-time housewives are the next most common. It is very rare here to have mothers will very young children working full-time.

Others nations with similarly low levels of full-time female workforce particpation are Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands. In fact Australia has very similar patterns to the Dutch 'part-time society' model, as I've heard it called.
 
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