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Recruiting for childcare services, if the service is reputable, means that there are basic qualifications the staff must have. If it's not reputable, they'll hire any warm body. The pitfall for workers in both cases is cost-cutting. Labour is a big cost, so trying to keep wages costs down is important in order to be affordable for parents. But if the wages are too low, it's not worth working there. And if it's a shady operation, it'll pay even worse, have higher child-to-staff ratios (even than legal), and the money goes into the pockets of the owners rather than on the premises and equipment for the kids.
People legitimately complain about the high price of childcare, but it's a job and you have to pay employees a reasonable wage. And just brushing it off as "anyone can do it" - well, there's Scott's entire piece about how he can only handle a couple of hours a day taking care of his own kids.
Men are just not generally suited to caring for small children. Last I checked, the highest rate of antidepressant usage by sex and profession was men working with small children, and it was more than twice the next item on the list.
I don't know why people have such a hard time believing that women are psychologically better-suited than men for caring for small children.
I mean, have you ever tried throwing a toddler over your shoulder and spinning him around while he giggles? It's pretty great.
I can totally see how childcare at daycare scale with daycare constraints would grind me down. I also wonder how much the current rules are the way they are because they're written by and for women. And I'm also curious how much the depression you refer to is increased or decreased by selection effects.
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To play devil's advocate, how much of that antidepressant use is the combination of 1) everyone assuming they're deviants and 2) tail effects from an extremely small population?
I'd be interested in seeing the difference(if it's been measured) between male elementary school teachers and little league coaches.
Devil's advocacy is fair, but this is one of those things where it occurs to me as terminally reddit-brained to ask for a source (not that you did). Someone would have to be so incredibly propagandized and blind to what's right in front of his face to doubt the matter.
I really don't doubt your explanation, I just think it isn't the full picture.
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Because the follow-up question is "are men better-suited psychologically to certain tasks?", and the answer, "yes", strikes at the heart of how Western society's nobles (women as class) justify their current position as nobility.
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Possible source (tables 3 and 4)
taking antidepressant (%)
for men
Education professionals
Education professionals:
Secondary-school teachers
Education professionals:
Preschool teachers
Education professionals:
Childcare workers
Social workers
Social workers:
Not benefit administrators
or social care workers
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