Are stay-at-home parents working class?

Last month, I expounded on what exactly is the working class and who belongs to the working class. A reader reached out to me afterward to suggest that I could’ve expanded on people who are part of the working class but that others wouldn’t generally see them as the working class.

I thought it was a great suggestion, so I’ve decided to do a short series expanding on my original post. Each week, I will publish a new post in the series, exploring one of the groups that seems to be sitting outside what people consider to be the working class.

Last week, I explored whether self-employed people are working class. This week, I’m answering the question of whether stay-at-home parents are working clas.

On the surface, we might be tempted to say no since they’re not working for an employer, but I don’t think that’s fair to the role stay-at-home parents play in the economy.

Before we get to that, however, let’s review what I mean by “working class”.

In last month’s post, I mentioned that belonging to the working class depends on one’s relationship to the means of production: if one owns or controls the means of production, then one belongs to the owning class. Otherwise, one belongs to the working class.

As I indicated last month, means of production is also called the four factors of production in economics, that is land, labour, capital, and entrepreneurship.

And by that definition, stay-at-home parents—at least generally speaking—are working class, since they don’t own the means of production.

Now, of course, there may indeed be some stay-at-home parents who do own the means of production. Perhaps they own a company, for example, but they primarily serve an advisory role at the company and spend most of their time managing affairs at home. I anticipate that such examples are not the norm.

However, there’s another factor to consider when determining whether stay-at-home parents are working class: their labour.

Stay-at-home parents do most of the work at home. They’re more likely to cook the meals, do the laundry, do the dishes, clean the house, and so on.

And full bellies, clean clothes, and a healthy home are critical for a productive workforce. Without the labour of the stay-at-home parents, members of the paid workforce would be less productive. Plus, they’re raising future workers, too.

To be fair, there are plenty of parents who perform unpaid household labour yet also participate in the workforce. So I’m not suggesting only stay-at-home parents perform unpaid household labour, only that they do perform labour that contributes to the economy in material ways.

Keep in mind that the labour performed by stay-at-home parents is duplicated in various ways in the paid workforce.

For example, daycares care for children while parents are at work, just as stay-at-home parents do. Housecleaners, well, clean houses, just as stay-at-home parents do. Food service workers cook food, just as stay-at-home parents do. Laundry workers wash clothes and bedding, just as stay-at-home parents do. And so on.

And if daycare workers, housecleaners, food service workers, and laundry workers are considered working class, then surely stay-at-home parents can be considered working class for performing the same labour.

So, are stay-at-home parents working class? Yes, barring a few exceptions. Generally, they don’t own the means of production, they care for paid members of the working class, they’re raising future paid workers, and the labour they perform is mirrored by paid workers in various service sectors.