You say ‘modern relationships’ but I feel like you’re describing a stereotypical 1950s relationship in that paragraph. The lack of contrast surprises me.
I think I agree with you that though women could work in the ’50s, there weren’t really careers available to them in the same way as for men. Maybe it is just women having ‘real’ careers and therefore higher opportunity cost/more practical liberty/fulfilling alternatives to children making a big difference.
I guess what I’m getting at is that, even if you describe men’s desires accurately, I don’t think it describes their behaviour in my parents’ generation let alone mine. But maybe this just varies a lot by country/income/education/social class and I see some weird sample. I know divorce rates have become super divergent by education in the US for example so presumably relationships are quite different too.
The problem is not who does the most household work, the problem is that the one who does (usually the mom) can't compensate by not working. A single income is rarely sufficient for a family.
Wasn’t the non-working housewife mostly a middle class thing and a weird blip in history? Women worked long before the baby boom either with less heavy tasks related to subsistence agriculture or cottage industries, and many worked during the baby boom. (I think the difference from today is partly different rates and partly women having actual careers in ways they didn’t before)
Maybe that is a good explanation for the baby boom though.
