A British academic has caused a fierce controversy by pointing out that society has paid a price as more and more women have chosen work over family.  Those losses need to be recognised and addressed.  Alison Wolf, Sir Roy Griffiths Professor in Public Sector Management, King's College, University of London, admits the benefits generated by mass entry of women into the paid labour force.  But it's not all to the good.

Three consequences get far less attention than they deserve: the death of sisterhood, or an end to the millennia during which women of all classes shared the same major life experiences to a far greater degree than did their men. the erosion of "female altruism," the service ethos that has been profoundly important to modern industrial societies, particularly in the education of their young and the care of their old and sick. the impact of employment change on childbearing. We are familiar with the prospect of demographic decline, yet we ignore — sometimes wilfully — the extent to which educated women face disincentives to bear children.
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The revolution in female opportunity has also had a huge effect on the public services and voluntary work. It has reinforced other changes in our society — the decline in religion, the glorifying of self-actualization — to transform our behaviour and values. Welcome to the end of "female altruism."

The loss of a service ethic, it seems to me, is evident in many areas of our public life—and not just among women.  For instance, the lack of interest in nursing as a vocation.  (Full disclosure: The StatWife is an RN.)  The nursing profession is undervalued today, and that is one reason too few are choosing it as an educational and career option.

Nursing is a high-stress occupation, and the stress is increasing as more and more nurses retire and there are fewer new graduates to replace them.  What are all those baby boomers going to do when they reach the age when close personal attention is needed because they can't take care of themselves anymore?  Sooner or later, this will affect nearly everyone who survives to old age, as more and more are doing nowadays.  Hospitals and extended care facilities can be difficult environments to work in.  The future will bring more who need to live there and far fewer who wish to work there.  It may not be a pretty picture.

In her far-reaching essay, Prof Wolf connects the transformation in career aspirations and experience with changes in demography, volunteerism, religion, public and private morality, and, indeed, worldview.

There is a chasm between the moral purpose voiced by female pioneers and the iconic female advertising slogan of today — "Because I'm worth it." We could, I suppose, write off the beliefs of the former group as the opium of the educated female classes, developed to reconcile them to unequal lives. But then we should see our own obsession with female occupational success as an ideology too.
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One could interpret today's feminist assumptions as reflecting the appetite of global capitalism for all talent, female and male, at the expense of the family. Certainly our current economic arrangements offer precious little support to family formation. On the contrary, they erect major barriers in its way.

I urge all interested in these issues to read the whole thing.

via Arts & Letters Daily.

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