The claim would be easy enough to test, but this story, like any number of similar “trend” stories about women (many of which you can find discussed in Susan Faludi’s book, Backlash) makes no attempt to test anything; it secures prominent placement in the press and in written discussion by male professional intellectuals as evidence for their latest theory solely on the strength of anecdote, conventional wisdom, and weasel-worded non-specific quantifiers. What makes Posner or the editors of the Times feel entitled to such lazy standards when gender is the topic?
N.B.: a point that’s strictly terminological, but also quite important. I think it’s a serious mistake to say that anyone “drops out of the work force to take care of their children.” Childcare is work; what happens is that a woman, or a man as the case may be, leaves a paid job in order to do unpaid work caring for her (or his) own children.
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