https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/more-than-twothirds-of-women-doing-home-duties-do-not-want-to-return-to-a-paid-job-38071244.html

More than two-thirds of women who work in the home and have a third-level education do not want to return to a paid job, according to a survey.

Solas, the further education and training authority, surveyed 218,000 women, aged between 20 and 64, who were described as being on 'home duties', meaning they did not participate in the labour force.

It found that, regardless of their education level, the majority of women did not want to return to the labour force.

However, some 16,000 women said they could be encouraged to do so if they had the right supports - such as flexible working hours, childcare, apprenticeships and further education.

Dress for Success founder Sonya Lennon, who helped to launch the research, said the findings were a "punch in the gut" but agreed with Ms McNaboe that the right conditions may attract women to work.

"It's all the old chestnuts, remote working, better access to childcare, all the nuggets that we know are holding women back," she said.

So the primary reasons cited for why women don't want to return to the workforce is childcare duties while their children are young. But that doesn't necessarily appear to be the case. Europe has been undergoing this gender equality paradox for a long time now.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2010/11/women-in-the-netherlands-work-less-have-lesser-titles-and-a-big-gender-pay-gap-and-they-love-it.html

Women in the Netherlands work less, have lesser titles and a big gender pay gap, and they love it... Though the Netherlands is consistently ranked in the top five countries for women, less than 10 percent of women here are employed full-time. And they like it this way.

So it seems to be the case that women don't necessarily want to work full-time if we give them a large enough social safety net. Gender earnings equality is negatively correlated with social welfare programs. I think America generally bucks this trend by doing a good job convincing men and women that they should self-actualize through a career. But it appears the only way to close the earnings gap is to lower social welfare and maintain or increase the message that a fulfilling life is found through a career.

I thought this dilemma would be interesting for us to discuss here. It would appear that for complete earnings equality to happen, we would have to increase capitalist principles while reducing social welfare. On the other hand, if we increase social welfare, it seems that women are more likely to marry, have children but stay out of the full-time workforce. So here we are stuck in this weird dilemma: raise social welfare programs that make women more apt to marry and have kids but would maintain or even expand the earnings gap or maintain our current state of affairs where we rely heavily on individualization and self-fulfillment through a career, but making women less likely to marry and have children.

So I suppose pretend you're a dictator of sorts and find the solution to this problem, assuming you even believe it's a problem to begin with.