Here’s one that will never work, more’s the pity.
I want to see a movement toward fewer jobs, fewer working people: I want to see an increase in single-income households.
Why? for a couple of reasons.
* in a two-parent household, one parent is at home (or hnear it) and therefore able to do all the various tasks that need to be done: the at-work parent can focus on their work, without worrying about being called away or having to squeeze errands and domestic tasks into the workday
* with a parent at home, there is someone to take charge of any issues at school, to ensure that students are fed, rested, clothed, and ready to learn
* with a division of labor like this, both kinds of work — in the home and out of it — are valued through example and practice: there is no difference between a “real job” and doing the stuff that has to be done to make the “real job” possible.
Would this work for everyone? I doubt it. Why not? I think the tendency to equate work with money, rather than valuing the work itself is one problem. Another is more fundamental: being able to pay for stuff (trips, vacations, consumer goods, etc.) is easier with two incomes. The old saw about “wanting what you have instead of getting what you want” comes to mind . . . .
Note that I am not lobbying for any specific gender to be assigned to carrying water at home. Who am I to speak against stay-at-home dads? Nor am I unsympathetic to folks who make a living doing those domestic tasks (house cleaning, et al). I know full well that not that many people use outside help: that stuff gets squeezed in wherever it will fit, and rarely satisfactorily.
Of course, some fundamental changes would have to take place: wages would have to be adjusted to make it possible for a household to survive on a single income. Healthcare would have to be more available than it currently is: job shopping for benefits or holding onto a terrible job to keep an insurance plan should become things of the past.
And while I’m at it, I want a pony.