The Two Working Household Part II

The Working Household — Part III

The modern two-working-parent household means fewer people at home holding down the fort. And as we saw in Part II, it’s not exactly clear that families gained all that much purchasing power in exchange.

So what happened on the other side?

What did employers get?

A hell of a lot more bodies competing for work.

And competition works both ways.
When workers are scarce, employers have to compete for them. Better pay. Better benefits. Better schedules. Better treatment. If your employee tells you to fuck off and walks out the door, you actually have a problem.

But flood the market with people competing for the same desirable jobs and that relationship starts to flip.

Now workers compete with each other.

How much salary will you accept? How shitty a schedule will you tolerate? How much nonsense will you put up with before quitting?

Because somewhere behind you is somebody thinking:

I’ll do it.
Maybe even for less.

We didn’t just send another parent into the workforce.

We gave employers another worker to choose from.