“Paying to work” denotes an arrangement in which a spouse (typically the female) “wants” to work, but the costs of child care, transportation, household help, extra meals prepared outside the home, etc. along with taxes, take so much money that the profit amounts to less than ten thousand dollars, or potentially negative. In places like New York City, the profit may be greater, but still not enough to bring in significant amounts of outside help.
The most practical consequence is that a woman comes home, and few or none of the chores (or familymaking, decorating, whatever stupidity the woman is after) get done (because the man is out working). Then comes the point of decision: how is the woman going to react?
- For the chores that need to get done, if she puts them on the husband (and he accepts), then the husband is now doing breadwinning and all of the chores. This is the “best” reaction, but the husband winds up living only for his family and has no life until the kids leave the house. Now the woman is the freeloader.
- Otherwise, the woman winds up doing the chores, and now is spending 50+ hours a week working, not making significant amounts of money. Aside from being just stupid behavior, this greatly builds resentment, physical fatigue, loss of trust especially if the man promised to help, feelings that there isn’t a partnership in childrearing or marriage, the man is a freeloader, it’s all on the woman.
- Also, if a woman can’t do her familymaking and decorating, then she isn’t living the lifestyle she wants, and is going to start thinking about ways that she can.
Eventually, the woman starts to think about how much “easier” it would be if the man weren’t around. She forgets that the man is providing a major source of income; she (in a middle class context) delusionally considers that alimony and child support will replace all the income.
Now that she’s put her husband into a mental frame where he’s a good for nothing freeloader, she’s not going to want to have sex or do other romantic things with him. The lack of all sorts of intimacy accelerates the decline of the marriage bond. Resort to men outside the marriage tempts.
At the same time, she takes ownership of the chores and daily tasking, which can lead the male to a place of learned helplessness. In some cases the female even rejects the attempts to help. With the inability to make a positive contribution to the relationship, the male has no options to improve the situation.
Eventually, she initiates divorce.
Often, this can’t be stopped after a relationship has become serious. A woman who is committed enough to an activity that it takes her away from her children and causes her to work a large number of additional hours, is unlikely to be persuaded. Thus, it’s a dictator game where the man either enslaves himself to his family, or he gets divorced; and the winning move is not to play, either by dumping the woman, or by influencing her by showing her the future before she gets too far down this path.
Less commonly (and some options only available to the upper classes), the situation can be helped by:
- Bringing in cleaners, heavily relying on meals out of the home, hiring lots of contractors
- Nannies, grandparents or relatives
- Having older children help out around the house
- Downsizing to reduce the chore load