Joyce Fegan: Why is the 'juggle struggle' an accepted way of life?

This week a study found that Ireland ranked second worst out of 38 OECD countries for parental leave and worst for public family policies

Researchers specifically studied the happiness of parents and non-parents and measured the gap between them. In the US, coming in last, parents were 12% less happy than non-parents. And in second place, parents in Ireland were 9.5% less happy than non-parents.

In American writer Angela Garbes’ new book, Essential Labour, she makes a startling point.

When America was pulling itself out of the Great Depression, via very deliberate government policy (the financial wellbeing of the majority was not being left to the will of the free market) it relied on the idea that every working person would have someone at home to do the cooking, cleaning and care work. The idea being that one job could sustain an entire household.