<Once the wife has kids, has to stay home and do more around the home, she feels like she's giving a lot but what she gives is not appreciated because you can't put a dollar value on it.>
Yes you can CB. And it's done. As in NZ, the USA transportation authorities will have calculated the value of an average person killed in road crashes, so they can do cost benefit analyses for road improvements.
As you'd expect, it's related to GDP per capita. An average human in the USA is worth a LOT more than an average person in India or Sierra Leone. Not because of an intrinsic value, but because the economic value which has been created around them over 100s of years makes them more valuable.
In NZ, the figure is about US$1.5 million [I think it's NZ$2 million].
It takes about 20 years to produce that value, so on a straight line appreciation calculation, that's about US$150,000 a year in value being created while the person is growing.
The primary producer of that value is the mother. The father donates a sperm cell - they are freely available from swarms of males competing to donate. Fathers also, usually, provide accommodation, food, transport, etc etc etc.
Having had 4 offspring grow to their 20s I know accurately what it costs to produce them. It isn't very much. The biggest cost is opportunity cost in lost wages of the working wife. Housing, food, education and so on are really quite cheap. An extra couple of bedrooms [NZ$100 a week], some meat, fish, eggs, bread, fruit etc for them to eat [$50 a week each], some hand me down clothes [$300 a year], bicycle, school [$4000 a year - mostly a waste of money], a Big Mac or Happy Meal sometimes, doctor visits [$50 a year], lymphoma treatment [$20,000 - a frightening stroke of bad luck, but paid by taxpayer - still an input cost], neurofibroma excision [life is stressful raising children - taxpayer funded].
Anyway, add it all up and it is a LOT less than NZ$2 million per offspring. It is about, um, let's see, maybe $100,000 per offspring]. So that's $400,000 input costs and $2 million in value produced.
Sure, Dad does stuff and helps in the psychological process, which is vital. But the mother is the main production unit. No uterus = no baby. No titties = an underdeveloped baby and person. She creates the psychological underpinnings before they turn into gremlins and go AWOL.
So, the most valuable thing most women can do is produce high quality young adults, which are worth more than the average. A good one such as Irwin Jacobs is worth $10 billion - produce an Einstein and it's a LOT of value.
There's a weird thing in many countries wherein what women do is devalued. Women playing businessman have higher status [in many eyes] than a mother of 5. Yet the mother of 5 produces US$8 million in value in only 30 years = about $300,000 a year. Actually, a lot of working women can produce a lot more than that a year, but they are generally quite genetically talented and if they had children, they would probably be a lot more valuable than the average run of the mill human.
Women with children are undervalued and you CAN put a dollar value on it.
Intuitively though, people understand the value. Watch a pregnant woman or a woman with an infant and see how she gets room made for her in a crowd and see how Big Business Executive gets out of the way too. Intuitively, they have high status.
Admittedly my numbers are approximate, but they seem about right. You can put a finer point on it if you like. I think we got value for money from our 4 offspring. The government is milking them via taxation now.
Mqurice |
