Birth rates / Fertility

[hk blues]

16 minutes ago, Satoshi said:

Its not slightly better, it's much better, and they can support extended families with their wages.

I don't have one (bit pointless in my current situation) but I have seen how it is economically beneficial to the individual involved.

I might have thought the same as you, until I saw plenty of first hand examples directly contradicting that perspective.

Do you think the moral choice would be not hiring a domestic worker?

My wife being one - she was not only willing but proud to be working abroad (Hong Kong) to sustain the family back home in the Philippines.  Unfortunately, it does create a culture "back home" where many, many families are reliant on handouts from OFWs and once this dries up as it inevitably does they are f****d. And, not to mention families that are split because the wife/husband is working abroad and there is simply no way they can afford to (or are willing to) give up the standard of living the family have become accustomed to. 

To put some perspective on the scale of the "problem" - in my street every single family bar maybe 2 (around 16 families) have OFWs.  

I could go on and on detailing the pros and cons of the OFWs but it is what it is.  

 

 

[Monkey Tennis]

13 minutes ago, virginton said:

Of course Thatcher 'acknowledged' (read: peddled) this, because it fits entirely with the right-wing neoliberal vision of self-contained nuclear families looking out for themselves only and sod the community around them. 

It also abdicated the responsibility of the state to fund a social care service and so allowed for Thatcherite tax cuts for the rich. And so here we are. 

Well yes, obviously.

Thanks for telling me though.

[Satoshi]

4 minutes ago, hk blues said:

My wife being one - she was not only willing but proud to be working abroad (Hong Kong) to sustain the family back home in the Philippines.  Unfortunately, it does create a culture "back home" where many, many families are reliant on handouts from OFWs and once this dries up as it inevitably does they are f****d. And, not to mention families that are split because the wife/husband is working abroad and there is simply no way they can afford to (or are willing to) give up the standard of living the family have become accustomed to. 

To put some perspective on the scale of the "problem" - in my street every single family bar maybe 2 (around 16 families) have OFWs.  

I could go on and on detailing the pros and cons of the OFWs but it is what it is.  

 

 

Agreed, it's hardly a panacea nor a desired end state.

The moral choice you face as an individual is hire or not, I didn't, but if I had a family I certainly would.

And then the second requirement is paying them a fair wage and treating them like a human being (again obvious but hardly universal).

Some people might be morally adverse to this and wouldn't hire a domestic helper, that's fine too but you can hardly vilify the first choice (provided the conditions mentioned above are in place).

[DiegoDiego]

I could go on and on detailing the pros and cons of the OFWs but it is what it is.

Bang average keeper if you ask me.

[falkirkthebigclub]

41 minutes ago, Satoshi said:

Its not slightly better, it's much better, and they can support extended families with their wages.

I don't have one (bit pointless in my current situation) but I have seen how it is economically beneficial to the individual involved.

I might have thought the same as you, until I saw plenty of first hand examples directly contradicting that perspective.

Do you think the moral choice would be not hiring a domestic worker?

I think the moral choice would be providing the domestic worker with a living wage, time off, training opportunities, health care etc. I hope your upstairs-downstairs paradigm makes allowance for such basic human rights.

[hk blues]

Just now, Satoshi said:

Agreed, it's hardly a panacea nor a desired end state.

The moral choice you face as an individual is hire or not, I didn't, but if I had a family I certainly would.

And then the second requirement is paying them a fair wage and treating them like a human being (again obvious but hardly universal).

Some people might be morally adverse to this and wouldn't hire a domestic helper, that's fine too but you can hardly vilify the first choice (provided the conditions mentioned above are in place).

And therein lies the real problem - I assume you are well-versed in how badly a significant minority are treated by their employers and not only the local families? And how do you qualify a "fair wage" - based on local market rates, home country rates or something else?  

I have no moral issue with the system but there are some deep-rooted social issues surrounding it.  

[vikingTON]

17 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Well yes, obviously.

Thanks for telling me though.

No thanks for you regurgitating right-wing claptrap about the family as some sort of reasonable perspective though.

[Sergeant Wilson]

I admire the positivity of posters extended families. I don't think anyone had any expectations of me, therefore haven't been disappointed.

[Monkey Tennis]

25 minutes ago, virginton said:

No thanks for you regurgitating right-wing claptrap about the family as some sort of reasonable perspective though.

That's not remotely what I did though.

Instead, I was highlighting how madly right wing some of the stuff on here is.   The quest for individualism stretches even to the point where there are meant to be no obligations between loved ones.

[Thorongil]

1 hour ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Some excellent drivel in evidence about family members owing each other absolutely nothing.

Even Thatcher acknowledged that such obligations exist.  It was just society that apparently didn't.

It’s not Eastenders.

[Monkey Tennis]

1 minute ago, Thorongil said:

It’s not Eastenders.

That's correct.

Clearly we need to either behave like the Mitchells or feel no bonds or ties at all.  There can be no alternatives.

Good point.

[Thorongil]

12 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

That's correct.

Clearly we need to either behave like the Mitchells or feel no bonds or ties at all.  There can be no alternatives.

Good point.

Clearly we must have no love whatsoever for our families or families must hold one another in obligation and duty, like a marriage, but one people haven’t chosen. 

There can be no middle way.

[coprolite]

1 hour ago, hk blues said:

My wife being one - she was not only willing but proud to be working abroad (Hong Kong) to sustain the family back home in the Philippines.  Unfortunately, it does create a culture "back home" where many, many families are reliant on handouts from OFWs and once this dries up as it inevitably does they are f****d. And, not to mention families that are split because the wife/husband is working abroad and there is simply no way they can afford to (or are willing to) give up the standard of living the family have become accustomed to. 

To put some perspective on the scale of the "problem" - in my street every single family bar maybe 2 (around 16 families) have OFWs.  

I could go on and on detailing the pros and cons of the OFWs but it is what it is.  

 

 

You're in the Philippines right? 

My work has recently started employing in the Philippines on recommendation from an Australian firm that employs several people over there. These are qualified professionals doing jobs that we have shortages of in the UK and are paid well by local standards (so they tell us). 

This isn't outsourcing, routine admin or telesales. 

It's not ideal for domestic life, working UK hours, but it's not as bad as going to the Gulf to be mistreated. 

It's only the last five years or so that tech has made this a feasible arrangement. 

Are you hearing much about this sort of thing increasing? What's the view from the other side? 

[jimbaxters]

On 16/07/2022 at 18:54, oaksoft said:

Not so sure about that.

In 1990 I was paying about 33% of my disposable income on rent.

Is it as bad as that now for most people?

Those in cities on low incomes? Probably yes.

Most people are probably paying less as a percentage though.

That sentence doesn't make sense. If your rent has to be taken from it then it's not disposable income. 

[Monkey Tennis]

17 minutes ago, Thorongil said:

Clearly we must have no love whatsoever for our families or families must hold one another in obligation and duty, like a marriage, but one people haven’t chosen. 

There can be no middle way.

But that's not what I'm saying.  

I'm merely questioning the bizarrely strident cases some are making about us not having any obligations towards loved ones.  

[Thorongil]

16 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

But that's not what I'm saying.  

I'm merely questioning the bizarrely strident cases some are making about us not having any obligations towards loved ones.  

Mostly people have good reasons for the positions they take. They may not be universally applicable, but so what?

[RH33]

20 minutes ago, jimbaxters said:

That sentence doesn't make sense. If your rent has to be taken from it then it's not disposable income. 

Had I not secured a mortgage my monthly wage of £1300 would've seen £1000. I went full time and gave up housing benefit to do so.

Was served notice in March, the uncertainty had been stressful, social housing would've meant bumping around homelessness accommodation for goodness knows how long.

 

[Monkey Tennis]

34 minutes ago, Thorongil said:

Mostly people have good reasons for the positions they take. They may not be universally applicable, but so what?

Indeed.

The ones I'm scoffing at haven't aimed for much of an 'each to their own' vibe.

Edited July 18, 2022 by Monkey Tennis

[SweeperDee]

I wouldn’t be surprised if the NHS 50 years hence takes that decision out of our hands. Once you've exhausted your assets you'll be released into the wild or offered a surfeit of diamorphine. 

Top way to go. Syringe driver of dia, oxy and regular morphine would be fantastic. Fully on board of the NHS contribute or die model.

[vikingTON]

5 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

That's not remotely what I did though.

Instead, I was highlighting how madly right wing some of the stuff on here is.   The quest for individualism stretches even to the point where there are meant to be no obligations between loved ones.

^^^ idiot found

The abolition of family obligations is in fact a core principle of the left and not the right. As demonstrated in that notorious, right-wing tract The Communist Manifesto, which states that:

Quote

It will transform the relations between the sexes into a purely private matter which concerns only the persons involved and into which society has no occasion to intervene. It can do this since it does away with private property and educates children on a communal basis, and in this way removes the two bases of traditional marriage – the dependence rooted in private property, of the women on the man, and of the children on the parents.

We can extend this in our 21st century conditions to any dependence of care, which would also be done communally like the education of children if we directly follow Marx and Engels' logic. The Bolsheviks literally punted people into communal apartments all over the Soviet Union to abolish the family as an economic and social unit. 

Insisting on family obligations as well as family rights - such as passing on material property advantages to ill-deserving sprogs - is in fact a hallmark of bourgeois right-wing societies and their individual (more accurately: nuclear family unit) basis of economic thought. 

Edited July 18, 2022 by vikingTON