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The rise of the remote husband

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In costa mesa, a city in California’s wealthy, beachy Orange County, she is working her way up to becoming a partner in the local office of a major law firm; he is an executive at a tech startup based in the Bay Area, more than 400 miles away. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is writing code from their apartment just off-campus, while she attends her classes at Harvard Law School. She is an obstetrician, he works remotely for a tech company; she is an academic at an Ivy League university, he works for a crypto company. All over the country, among the well-heeled and well-educated, a new trend appears to be emerging. When the wives head out in the morning, to their offices, classrooms or hospitals, they are waving goodbye to their husbands, who remain at home.

This is hardly a gender-swapped 1950s revival. The men are still working, after all, not predominantly cooking, cleaning and caring for children. But it does reflect an underappreciated effect of the rise of remote work: the rise of the remote husband.

Men and women still specialise in different kinds of work. Jobs in industries like computer science and engineering are disproportionately performed by men. Teaching and nursing jobs are dominated by women. Professions like law and medicine may still employ more men than women, but the scales are tipping: more women than men are enrolled in law school and medical school. As such, among young couples, she is probably more likely to be going to be a lawyer or a doctor than he is.

Different occupations have also had to take different approaches to remote working. A minority of medical professionals may be able to work remotely, by taking telehealth jobs, but the vast majority have to treat their patients in person. Lawyers may be tied to a specific state or area by their licence and speciality. Meanwhile, the industries which reported the highest level of remote-work flexibility are coding and technology, architecture, engineering and business jobs. About half of people working in computer or mathematical jobs work remotely full-time.

The upshot is that, in aggregate, it is easier for men to work from wherever they please. A survey carried out by McKinsey, a consultancy, found that 38% of working men had the option to work remotely full-time, compared with 30% of women. Roughly half of women report being unable to work remotely at all, compared with 39% of men.

This may sound like yet another way in which women have ended up with the short end of the stick. But that view is myopic. Couples compromise in all kinds of ways for their lives to work together. If she is offered a big promotion, conditional on moving to Chicago, she may have to turn it down if his job is tied to New York. The geographical liberation of either partner makes it possible for the other to ascend the corporate ladder. The Costa Mesa couple picked that area because it was convenient for her job—and for access to their children’s grandparents, who now regularly entertain the little ones.

Claudia Goldin, a Nobel laureate, has written about how remote work may be a boon for women. Over the past 200 years women’s participation in the labour force has been highest when it has been possible to perform paid work from home. She has also found that gender wage gaps are tightest in fields where flexible working is the norm. But it is not only flexibility in the work that women do that may be to their advantage.

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Economics

Empty shelves, trucking layoffs lead to recession in Apollo’s trade war timeline

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The economic impact of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration will soon become apparent to everyday Americans and lead to a recession this summer, according to Apollo Global Management.

Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, laid out a timeline in a presentation for clients that showed when the impact of tariffs announced by President Donald Trump could hit the U.S. economy. Based on the transport time required for goods to China, U.S. consumers could start to notice trade-related shortages in their local stores next month, according to the presentation.

“The consequence will be empty shelves in US stores in a few weeks and Covid-like shortages for consumers and for firms using Chinese products as intermediate goods,” Slok wrote in a note to clients Friday.

Tariff to recession timeline:

  • April 2: Tariffs announced, containership departures from China to U.S. slowing
  • Early-to-mid May: Containerships to U.S. ports come to a stop
  • Mid-to-late May: Trucking demand comes to a halt, leading to empty shelves and lower sales for companies
  • Late May to early June: Layoffs in trucking and retail industries
  • Summer 2025: recession

Source: Apollo Global Management

To support the idea that the U.S. economy is on the verge of recession, the presentation also included data that shows new orders for business, earnings outlooks and capital spending plans have all fallen sharply in recent weeks.

The Trump administration has paused some of the tariffs announced on April 2, but has hiked duties even higher on China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledged Monday on “Squawk Box” that the current tariff standoff with Beijing is “unsustainable.” Levies on goods from China are now subject to a 145% rate.

China is not the only source of consumer goods, but it does have a large role in the U.S. economy. The U.S. imported $438.9 billion of goods from China in 2024, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, putting it right behind Mexico and above Canada on the list of trading partners by that metric.

While many on Wall Street are now saying that a recession for the U.S. is likely in 2025, Slok’s predictions are toward the more pessimistic side. Bessent has said the administration expects a “detox period” for the economy due to the trade negotiations but not necessarily a recession.

There is also some evidence of a “pull-forward” in orders from before the tariffs were announced, which could keep goods on the shelves for longer than the Apollo timelines sets out.

“Don’t expect empty shelves yet — [year to date] stock is still up, and demand is slowing,” Bernstein analyst Aneesha Sherman said in a note to clients Monday.

— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.

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Economics

German fiscal boost won’t outweigh tariff drag for euro zone: IMF

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Europe has so much more room to produce improved productivity, IMF official says

Higher German infrastructure spending will boost Europe’s economic growth in the coming years — but not enough to outweigh the expected drag from U.S. tariffs, according to Alfred Kammer, director of the European department at the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF last week cut its growth outlook for the euro area, also making downgrades for the U.S., U.K. and many Asian countries due to President Donald Trump’s volatile tariff policy.

The institution cut its euro area growth forecasts for each of the next two years by 0.2 percentage points, to 0.8% in 2025 and 1.2% in 2026.

“It’s the tariffs and the trade tensions which weigh on the outlook rather than the positive effects on the fiscal side,” Kammer told CNBC’s Carolin Roth in an interview at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings last week.

“What we see is we have a meaningful downgrade for Europe advanced economies… and for the emerging euro area countries double as much over this two-year period.”

The negative impact of tariffs will be slightly offset by Germany’s recent infrastructure spending bill, which will boost growth in the euro area over those two years, Kammer said.

Exemptions passed to Germany’s longstanding debt rules have unlocked higher defense spending and enabled creation of a 500 billion euro ($548 billion) infrastructure and climate fund. The move has been described by economists as a potential “game changer” for the sluggish economy — the largest in the euro zone.

Guests and attendeess mingle and walk through the atrium during the IMF/World Bank Group Spring Meetings at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2025.

Inflation job nearly done but tariff risks loom — What European Central Bank members said this week

However, optimism has been shaken by U.S. tariffs, which are widely expected to dampen global growth and trade flows.

Several policymakers at the European Central Bank told CNBC last week that while the inflation path appeared positive — with tariffs potentially bringing inflation in the bloc down further — their broader outlook was now significantly more uncertain.

The IMF’s Kammer said that the ECB should only cut interest rates once more this year, by a quarter percentage point, despite growth risks.

The ECB has so far reduced rates seven times in quarter-percentage-point increments, starting in June 2024. Its most recent move lower in April took the deposit facility, its key rate, to 2.25%.

“We have a very clear recommendation for the ECB. What we saw so far is a huge success in the disinflation effort and monetary policy has worked … so we are expecting to sustainably hit the 2% inflation target in the second half of 2025,” Kammer told CNBC.

“Our recommendation is there is room for one more 25-basis-point cut, in the summer, and then the ECB should hold that 2% policy rate unless major shocks hit and there is a need for recalibrating monetary policy,” he added.

Overnight index swap pricing on Monday pointed to market expectations for two more quarter-point cuts this year.

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Economics

Water sommeliers say the simplest drink is the future of luxury

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SIX ESTEEMED sommeliers sit silently behind a judging table. A waiter tops up their glasses one by one and they appraise the stuff: sniff, hold it to the light, sometimes swirl, sip, swish between cheeks, dump the extras and give it a score. But the liquid is no Zinfandel or Syrah. Instead the bon viveurs are tasting high-end waters.

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