IMAGINE HOW SOCIETY WOULD CHANGE

September 5, 2017

If 70% of Canadian families could be supported on one income

It’s not an unrealistic ideal in the early 1970s at least 70% of Canadian families were supported on a single income.  Women had been in the workforce right up until the end of the second world war then during the baby-boom years of the 1950s and 1960s women were staying home to raise their families.

There was no need for daycare, children were supported through their school years, a parent was available to take the kids to appointments and to maintain the family home.  Break and enters usually happen when no one is home so petty crime rates might fall, kids might get a better education and be better socialized by a less stressed role model.  Families might enjoy more community involvement, where’s the downside.

In the earlier part of the last century unions fought hard to get health care benefits, education, pensions, fair wages and so on.  These days those trends have changed dramatically, we have less full time jobs, less benefits, lower wages, higher taxes and far, far more debt than ever before in the history of humankind.

Is your family really better off with two working parents and piles of debt?