The Breadwinner Aspect in the Current Working Society

The Breadwinner Aspect in Current working Society
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The Breadwinner Aspect in Current working Society
Historically, working was attributed to a single spouse who had the responsibility of earning food for the family. It was a norm that mainly, the men would work while their wives remained at home to look after their children. For this reason, men became the sole breadwinners in their families. Based on this aspect of working to feed a family, there was the introduction if the phrase “family wage.” The family wage was the minimum amount of pay that the breadwinner could be paid and was enough to cater to the family's basic needs; the other spouse and children. In most cases, the family wage was paid in consideration if the family size, thus becoming insufficient to sustain many families. Therefore, workers opted to strike due to wage deductions staging that there was need for bread and roses but bread for their families should come first (Ross, p. 63). Family wage was in the sense that it would be sufficient to sustain a family by providing the full package of the family’s basic needs which determine its survival.
The concept of family wage should not be a significant concept for which workers advocate today since the living standards have changed. Depending on the economic state of different parts, there is a huge variance in the family needs. For instance, some items that were regarded as luxury in the past are now considered to be essential needs, such as cars. The breadwinners might need to own a car for convenience to enable them to commute to and from work each day. Therefore, paying a family wage to a sole breadwinner means providing salary that sustains all the needs of a family in all dimensions, a concept that would result to companies spending more on wages. People in the current world have devised methods to diversify income. Also, families in the current social setting do not depend on a single breadwinner as was the case in the 20th century.
Education has played a critical role in diversifying income sources in families where most modern parents are all well-educated. Therefore, they start families while each of them practices a particular profession and earn a decent income. Therefore, they support each other in providing for the family, hence making it easy to achieve financial goals. The aspect of family wage is outdated since there are always rising living standards, leading to an increase in needs. Upon the development in civilization, there was introduction of equal pay legislation where there was a need for equal pay to both men and women (Hagedorn et al., p. 987). This aspect of equal pay overcame the aspect of family wage, since women also became part of the working community. It was evident that they were ready to ...