women and economics

No, not Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
There’s an interesting article in the NYT regarding women working in Germany. It’s complicated, because the East Germans encouraged women to work by providing good benefits, child care, and all-day school. West Germans have long hung onto the old “Kirche, Kueche, Kinder” idea, with policies to match. They’ve noticed, however, that the current economic downturn has affected traditionally male-dominated fields more than female-dominated fields, and are now trying to encourage women to work. Money for parental leave (both parents), daylong school, better childcare, and the like are becoming more common in the western states.
I was particularly interested in their description of the labor market for women in the US:

American mothers do not have the same subsidized child care options, and must cope with the long U.S. summer school break. But they face less discrimination at work and more pressure to earn money to finance private health care and education for their offspring.

This is how they account for the fact that, over all, there are more American women in the workplace than German women. We work because otherwise, our children wouldn’t get healthcare. This reminds me of a conversation I had at cub scouts last week — the parents, all of whom are covered by military or veteran’s health care, were complaining about the incipient “socialization of medical care.” It was so frustrating; they have socialized care, and I know people with no insurance who are looking forward to medicare, so their criticism seemed a bit unfair.

Women, economics, health care…. It’s all connected.