More Money Alone Won’t Fix Parenthood’s Time Crisis — But Less Work Might

By WorkFour Executive Director Vishal Reddy

The New York Times recently laid out a clear case for why falling birthrates aren’t just a cultural trend but a sign that we undervalue parenting’s biggest hidden cost: time. Drawing on feminist economist Nancy Folbre, the piece reminds us, “The total costs [of parenting] include the cost of the time. It’s not just the money, right?”

I’m not here to argue for or against pro-natalist policies. People can disagree about whether governments should try to raise birth rates at all. But one thing everyone can agree on is that parenting is hard work, no matter its effect on population numbers. If the goal is to make it more realistic and appealing, then any serious plan has to tackle the time squeeze — not just throw money at it.

Folbre has long pointed out that parents shoulder massive unpaid labor while non‑parents, as she says, “free‑ride on parental labor.” The Times piece suggests bigger subsidies, tax credits, or national baby bonuses. Sure, money helps. But no check can magically stretch a 24‑hour day. Isabel Sawhill and Katherine Guyot’s research shows that since the 1970s, middle-income, dual‑earning parents now work about 600 more hours per year than they did decades ago — that’s roughly 15 extra weeks a year balancing paid work, child care, and housework. No wonder burnout is high, and family life and leisure feels squeezed in from all sides.

Even in countries like Sweden and Finland — famous for generous child care and paid leave — birthrates remain low because, as the piece notes, “high wages increase the value of parents’ unpaid time.” Sweden and Finland have the family infrastructure. What they don’t have is meaningfully shorter workweeks (the standard workweek in Sweden is 40 hours and Finland’s is 37.5 hours). Without solving for the time squeeze, the reality is that paid work will still inevitably crowd out family time.

That’s because the 40-hour workweek was designed in a different era — one in which most women weren’t part of the paid labor force, and caregiving was assumed to happen invisibly at home. The 40-hour, 5-day workweek was built for a single breadwinner and a full-time, unpaid caregiver. But that model hasn’t matched reality for a long time. In 1940, only 24% of women were in the labor force; over the next 60 years, that number climbed to 60%. Today, most families depend on two incomes — and yet the structure of work hasn’t changed to reflect that development or the rise in single-parent households. We’ve kept the same workweek, layered caregiving and domestic labor on top of it, and called the result “balance.” It’s not. It’s overload.

That’s starting to change. In 2025, Tokyo’s city government launched a 4-day workweek for 160,000 public employees, explicitly to ease family pressures and stem Japan’s record-low birthrate. Portugal is running a national pilot of reduced work hours with no pay cuts, aiming to improve work-life balance and support family life. And other countries — from Iceland to South Korea to Dubai — are experimenting with the same idea.

Shorter workweeks for all – not just parents – is key. Because the answer isn’t just to help parents individually opt out of overwork. In a labor market shaped by long hours and rising expectations, targeted policies — even generous ones — leave most parents stuck choosing between falling behind at work or burning out. Competitive pressure will always push workers, especially parents, to keep pace with norms set by those without caregiving responsibilities. As long as the baseline workweek remains long, the cost of stepping back — in promotions, pay, or job security — will fall disproportionately on caregivers, who are disproportionately women — sometimes pushing them out of the workforce altogether, even when they want to stay in. That’s why we can’t just ease the burden on parents; we have to focus on everyone’s work hours. Reducing hours across the board shifts the norm, not just the exception, and creates the conditions where care work can happen without penalty.

Shorter workweeks is a structural fix that demands political urgency given the childcare crisis. They’re how we make space for the labor that markets don’t pay for but society can’t function without. When we build a schedule that supports care — not just output — we get stronger families, healthier kids, and a more sustainable economy. If we want to make parenting sustainable, we need to shrink the standard workweek, not just for parents, but for everyone. A 4-day, 32-hour week with no cut in pay would give families the one thing they’re missing most: time. Time for doctor visits, school drop-offs, sick days, or simply being present — without sacrificing income, sleep, or sanity.

Folbre is right: “You have to decide what you care about and what you’re willing to pay for that.” But that’s not just a question for individuals — it’s a question for society. And it’s not just about money. It’s about time: who has it, who doesn’t, and what we’re willing to change to make it more equitably shared. If raising children is truly a public good, then time should be treated like public infrastructure, not left to individual sacrifice. That means shortening the workweek for everyone and making care possible not by exception, but by design.