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Across the developed world, women who stay home are increasingly seen as old-fashioned and an economic burden to society. If their husbands are rich, they are frequently criticized for being lazy; if they are immigrants, for keeping children from learning the language and ways of their host country. Their daily chores of cleaning, cooking or raising their children have always been ignored by national accounts (If a man marries his housekeeper and stops paying her for her work, G.D.P. goes down. If a woman stops nursing and buys formula for her baby, G.D.P. goes up.). In a debate that counts women catching up with men in education and the labor market in terms of raising productivity and economic growth, stay-at-home moms are valued less than ever. This is so despite the fact that from Norway to the United States, economists put the value of their unpaid work ahead of that of the manufacturing sector.

 In countries where mothers still struggle to combine career with family and quit work less out of conviction than out of necessity, they are often doubly punished. In Germany, the biggest economy in Europe, most schools still finish at lunchtime, and full-time nurseries for children under 3 are scarce. Yet in this generation of young mothers you are more likely to find women saying they are on extended maternity leave or between jobs than admitting they are housewives. Only among the wealthy is it seen as class status when the highly educated mother takes children to Chinese or violin lessons.

 “It’s hard to find a balance between not romanticizing and not stigmatizing housewives,” said a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts. “Even though a number of women still stay at home, a cultural shift has put them on the defensive.”