There may be disadvantages that offset this enormous benefit to women. I’m amazed though that this one hasn’t figured significantly in the discussion. It strongly suggests the skewed interest of some feminists in promoting the interests of relatively privileged women for whom the danger of ending up behind the Walmart checkstand isn’t a real concern.

In fact, I’m furious that it isn’t. The most important feminist issue is making it possible for women to avoid boring, dead-end, poorly paid women’s work—possibly by providing some financial cushion so that they aren’t forced to do it and certainly by fighting sex discrimination in employment so that working class women can get guy jobs—in construction, in skilled blue-collar trades and the like.

How about if we have nursery vouchers on top? Speaking for the UK, there are several different overlapping schemes, some means tested, some flat rate and some tax breaks, which add up to about £80 per week, enough to pay for three days nursery per week.

I think you’re thinking more deeply about my comment than is really necessary. All I mean about “replacing a parents’ duties with paid labour” is that you’re paying someone else to change the nappies. My point was really that I don’t think that childcare costs are relevant to a discussion on the pros and cons of basic income to women, when it is other effects that are, imarhacotyvm*, leading to the prevalence of women taking time off to care for children instead of men.

To answer your last question, I don’t really believe my opinion is worth that much (but typing things on the Internet is cheap, so I do it), which is why I’m for reform of the UK parental leave system to allow parents to choose for themselves how much parental leave each parent chooses to take.

[* In My Actually Rather Humble And Correctable Opinion Thank You Very Much]

Yes, I believe that it’s really easily attainable. For the half of the country that are working already, taxing an additional £2-3k on average, when you’re giving them £6k in return would surely not be contentious?

In terms of political capital for persuading the general public that this would be a good thing, I’m less convinced. Most people who I talk to about it have the instant reaction that it would be a terrible idea, and I’m not entirely sure why.

And I love your North American college graduate example, because that neatly segues into the point about feminism being/not being about middle class, rich, women. I’m sure if you want a conversation about higher education in North American colleges you could get one. But I’m pretty sure also that in the field of education, since the US of A isn’t in fact the entire world, a feminist might want to talk about the denial of primary education to girl children in the Third World. Or they might want you to take a gander at, say, Iran, where the large number of female graduates doesn’t seem to have translated into an equal power structure in the country. Just for example.

I’m noting also the phenomenon quite well known amongst feminists that, in an open conversation about women or a subject pertaining to them, the chances are that someone, somehow, will manage to turn the conversation around to not being about women after all. The feminist equivalent of Godwin’s Law, if you will. You’ve succeeded admirably on that. Bravo.

I know a bit about the situation in Russia, where nurses study for 4 years, but it’s a poorly paid job that’s not well respected. (Also, you can start in nursing school after the 9th year of eduction, and if you go for all 10 years of regular education you only go for 3 years.)

I looked at Alsott’s paper in the Van Parijs volume again briefly before going out this morning and I think you’re right that it’s not particularly strong on the gender analysis. (In fairness it’s only 5 pages long, I guess.) I was struck by one comment you make:
“in many countries there are constantly large number of vacancies for nurses and other kind of carers, and still the wages don’t go up.”
I’m more than happy to take your word for it, but it’s surprising to me because, in the US, being a nurse, at least at a hospital, is a quite well paying job, and pay has only been rising for many years. It’s one of the few jobs I can think of where, with just a 4-year degree, one is nearly guarenteed to find a good paying job with lots of prospects of wage increases right after graduation. (My mother is a nurse who has slowly moved into management so I hear about such things quite a lot.) Odd that it would be so different in other countries.