Lately I have taken to glancing at the articles on Focus On The Family's Boundless website.[1] Even though aimed at college kids, and protestant in tone, some of its articles remain thought provoking and pertinent. This week they have posted an article talking about the "two income trap." More and more, you see both parents working. This has been noticeable in a variety of ways, for example, schools are now more likely to close than to risk needing to close early. For some reason an employer is more willing to accept that you cannot come in at all than that you must leave unexpectedly early. Similarly, the number of two hour delays have gone down. This last winter highlighted the ridiculousness of this when schools were closed several days that they need not have been.
Returning to topic, another way in which the two income trap shows up is that couples often find that they "cannot" do without both incomes. Far from one of them being "extra," they come to find that loosing either would constitute an emergency. This article[2] talks about that. It sketches, in reference to a full book on the topic, how couples come to depend on that second income. They buy a more expensive house, in a school district that everyone wants to be in (more competition means higher prices). They buy more expensive cars (cars with televisions in them‽). They pay for day care, they eat out more. Perhaps, like my aunt and uncle, neither knows how to cook much or well. They thus introduce expenses they would not have with a single income, and then cannot afford to loose either.
My parents avoided this differently. By refusing to take a job outside the home, working only with day care, my parents choose less costly vacations, less fashionable clothes (not that we kids particularly noticed or cared). We still go out less than many (most?) people I know, and go out more simply, so that I know rather less about the area restaurants than many of my friends. We had a garden, and my dad worked other jobs. We got by, with Catholic schooling, even in this super-expensive area. So I tend to look questioningly at people who think they need two incomes, and the boundless article comes to a similar conclusion.
[1] http://www.boundless.org/
[2]
http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001084.cfm