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Comment by graemep | Hacker News Reader

It does not have to be a replica of of 50s society though. In particular, I do not think the model of "men go out to work, women look after home and kids" is a great one.

There are lot of alternatives. Men can be primary parents (I was, once the kids got to about the age of eight or so, and was an equal parent before that) and they could stay at home (I continued working, but I was already self-employed and working from home, and my ex never worked after having children).

I think the ideal set up (it would have been so for me) would have been for both parents to work part time.

Of course it still comes back to, you should be able to raise a family on the equivalent of one full time income.

Of course, if the leisured society predicted a few decades ago had come to pass it would be one part time salary.

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The model of men work while women watch the kids was most of history. Of course is completely ignors 'womens work' which was very needed for survival and defined by things you could do while also watching kids. for the first few years kids eat from mom so she cannot get far from them (after that she is probably pregnaunt again thus restarting the cycle). Mens work was anything that needed to be done that could not be done when pregaunt or nursing a kid.

today men have the ability to watch kids thanks to formula (though it is better for the kids to eat from mom - this is rarely talked about because it is easy to go too far and starve a baby to death in the exceptions).

> I think the ideal set up (it would have been so for me) would have been for both parents to work part time.

Beautifully said, very progressive also!

I am a big fan of the 4-day work week (for the same amount of money as 5 days), it's been transformative for my life. The extra energy and focus you get from that 1 day translates to higher productivity in the 4 days where you do work. Sadly, the current "squeeze em', bleed em' dry, and drop em'" brand of capitalism is incompatible with the majority of the people to experience how good life can be like that.

I certainly ain't looking forward to them raising the retirement age to 1337 by the time I get to retire.

It's like a race where they repeatedly move the finishing line because the organizers took the medals and sold them, while waiting for you to drop dead so they don't have to give you what you are due.

Who wouldn't be a fan of 80% of the work for 100% of the pay? It's a built-in raise equal to or greater than what you'd get from changing jobs, without the switch in seniority or experience.

A 4 day work week can always be implemented as 4 10 hour days instead of 5 8 hour days.

> Who wouldn't be a fan of 80% of the work for 100% of the pay?

If you, as an employer, want a motivated, energetic workforce who are not slacking off, it's also in your interest to give that opportunity to your employees, as multiple experiments have shown that 4-day work results in increased productivity and employee retention.

Knowledge work does not have 1-1 correspondence between time spent and productivity. Things get VERY non-linear, to the point that more than 50 hours of real knowledge work a week is often LESS productive than 40 hours.

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