/blog-gone

Virginia Postrel blogs on the "Family-First Generation". From the USA Today article she links:

Generation X and Generation Y workers, who are younger than 40, are more likely than boomers to say they put family before jobs.

I've seen this trend around me and I lean that way myself. I tend to think this is part of how "traditional families" are back in vogue. Then again, I'm also a religious conservative. Virginia's smart explaination:

Among the professionals profiled, I suspect that economics, not some sort of moral conversion, explains most of the trend. If you're a highly skilled, highly educated professional, you can make quite a good living these days without working terribly long hours or putting your work first. (You can, of course, make more if you work obsessively. But even the most rationalistic economist believes people maximize utility, not income.) And, contrary to widespread belief in places like LA, Washington, and New York, in most of the United States, a family can live a comfortable middle-class life on middle-class pay, in many cases on a single salary. [Emph. added]

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, Little Boy Blue and the Man on the Moon... [Link plays music]