Blog: Is the Rise of Trad Wives a Symptom of a Failing Economy

Kate Petriw is Communications and Narratives Co-Lead the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.

The trad wife movement has recently ballooned in North America, and in many ways… I get it.

The politics and upholding of patriarchy (hard no).
But valuing women’s care work? Hell yes.

Because life under late-stage capitalism is exhausting it leaves us no time for care work (cooking, cleaning childrearing, etc). It does not care about care, it runs on it, depends on it, quietly exploits it, but doesn’t value it.

So when I see women leaning into homemaking, baking, gardening, creating beautiful spaces, and actually having the time to do so I’m like… yeah. Of course that’s appealing.

When women entered the workforce, all the care work, the cooking, the cleaning, the organizing, the emotional labour—didn’t disappear. It just got squeezed in around everything else. So now we’re rushing meals, half-folding laundry, trying to keep up with homes and lives that feel like they’re constantly one step behind.

And when we see someone doing that same care work with time, ease, and intention? Of course we want to have that, because our current economic system doesn’t make that kind of life possible.

Part of what’s driving this trend feels like a nervous system response—a craving for a slower pace of life where this kind of work is valued in our economy. But going back to 1950s gender roles (and having men control women’s financial freedom)? Definitely not the solution.

Going back to the 1950s won’t solve it

There’s this idea that the 1950s were a golden era where care work was more valued, something you can see echoed in the vintage aprons donned by these influencers.

The truth is yes, caregiving was financially supported, but only because women didn’t have much of a choice. You stayed home because the system made it very hard to do anything else.

Let’s not forget:

• Women had limited legal and financial autonomy
• Domestic violence was widely dismissed
• You couldn’t even get a credit card without a husband until 1974 in the U.S.

So sure, maybe you had time to bake a pie… but at what cost? In reality that’s not a soft life, it’s more of a controlled one.

This “idealized” era was also deeply unequal in other ways. Racial segregation was still a reality. LGBTQ+ rights were virtually nonexistent. The idea that the 1950s were some kind of universal golden time is far from reality.

But here’s the part that gets a bit concerning. Because this is what some right-wing narratives want you to believe: that if we just go back to that era, everything would be better. That families would thrive, life would feel simpler, and somehow all the chaos of today would disappear.

What helps with the appeal of that era is the fact that things were affordable.

Back then, it was actually possible for an average joe blow with a regular waged job to afford a home and support his wife AND family. But that didn’t happen because of traditional gender roles. A big driver of this was that income inequality was far lower, the government actually taxed the rich.

Around this time tax rates for the wealthy in the U.S. were incredibly high—often above 70%, and at times over 90% for the highest earners. Compare that to today, where top rates are dramatically lower and wealth concentration has skyrocketed.

Back then, productivity gains were also more broadly shared. When the economy grew, average workers actually saw the benefits. Nowadays, most of those gains go to the top.

So when people look back and think, “life seemed easier then”—they’re not wrong about the outcome. They’re just wrong about the cause. It wasn’t because women stayed home, it was because the economy was structured in a way that made life more affordable for ordinary people.

And the idea that today’s right-wing economic policies are going to bring that back is a falicy. You can guess there policies will be more of the same, cutting taxes for the wealthy, weaken labour protections, etc. in fact doing the opposite.

The illusion of the trad wife isn’t real

Of course most of the trad wife content we’re seeing online, simply not real life. It’s produced. These women are not just “at home baking.” They’re running businesses, and making sourdough with ring lights behind them. They have brand deals, product lines, content strategies, sometimes entire teams behind them. Ballerina Farm? That’s a full operation with staff, logistics, and a business model.

It’s not a 1950s housewife, it’s a hustling entrepreneur in a linen dress. 1950s housewives didn’t have camera crews, monetized content, or a Shopify backend.

So what’s being sold here isn’t just a lifestyle, it’s a curated aesthetic, that requires a lot of behind the scenes labour, and money. And when regular people try to replicate it without those supports? It can feel impossible.

Of course women should have the freedom to stay at home if they like, but is worth mentioning in addition is a single-income household is difficult to attain for most people today—regardless of gender. A new Bank of America Institute analysis says a quarter of Americans are living pay check to pay check, and nearly 60% of all Americans don’t have $1,000 to cover an emergency. The the cost of essentials, housing, childcare, and healthcare, has skyrocketed like never before, inflation at an all time high.

We don’t need the past, we need something radically different

What this might be pointing to isn’t a desire to go backwards—it’s a signal that something is deeply broken in the present.

People desperately need space and time for care work and this economic system (one that always upheld patriarchy) isn’t delivering to say the least.

The good news it’s not a lost cause, we can salvage this thing there are endless case studies we can learn:

• Policies that actually value care work—like universal childcare for men and women across Nordic countries and free daycare.
• Housing incentives in places like Singapore that support intergenerational care (discount on houses close to family!)
• Community wealth-building approaches in Scotland that tackle inequality at the local level.
• Cities like New York exploring publicly run grocery stores to bring down food costs.

While these are just example of some policies, the movement to change our economic system from it’s core and bring care back into the fold has been booming, from post growth ideas, to wellbeing economies, or doughnut economics. They also recognize that indicators like GDP don’t take into the cost of care work even though those are the very activities we need for our economy to thrive.

Instead of faux return to the 1950s—we need a future where:

• The cost of living is actually affordable
• Work doesn’t consume our entire lives (hello 3–4 day work weeks)
• Care work is valued, supported, and shared
• People’s wellbeing is prioritized over profit.

We don’t need to be living in an economy that fuels wars, and props up billionaires. Its purpose can be shifted to one that values our time, home, wellbeing and those we love.