ABSTRACT
Profound social, demographic, and economic changes during the past half-century have altered how most people in the developed world lead their private lives. This chapter discusses that such dramatic changes in basic human arrangements deserve greater scrutiny and should serve as impetus for the development of improved public policies that support these new realities and redress some of their untoward consequences. It further maintains that this policy formulation must deal with sex-based biological difference, if gender equity is the goal. One need to better incorporate insights from second-wave feminism about the relationship between women's disadvantage in the workplace and their responsibilities for reproduction and domestic life. Women in the developed world face the predicament of needing their salaries, inadequate work-family supports, and the reduced fertility resulting from delayed childbearing. The secular trend to delay childbirth thus leaves women a narrow window of biological opportunity for childbearing.
