Introducing The Third Oikos: Homemaking Reimagined

The internet age came upon us, whipped around our lives like a tornado, and now, before we’ve had a chance to take full stock, is gone. Just as suddenly, we live in the age of A.I., where dystopias and utopias are frequently foretold. We might not believe any of them, but who knows what will become of us?

It’s increasingly apparent that technological change has fundamental implications for family life, for good or ill. Over the last decade, America has wrestled with the problems of child safety and the challenges of parenting that flow from social media, infinite-scroll pornography, and screen addiction. But what if underneath the sense of fragmentation that technology naturally (and justifiably) arouses, there is an undercurrent of healing and integration? What if, in a real way that can be difficult to spot at times, families are gaining from some technological changes? What if certain technologies are making family life better, marriages stronger, and the household more productive? 

We do not raise these questions out of a desire to appear generically “optimistic” about technology. But, rather, we raise them after a serious appraisal of certain technological trends that seem to be resulting in a new integration of domestic life and employment, the prospect of new experiments in education, and even the rise of small businesses that take advantage of next-generation telecoms systems. In an essay for National Affairs, “Technology for the American Family,” Jon Askonas and I described this technological development as the “third oikos.”

We see evidence of a new oikos arising, a third oikos, in which productive labor and the household are being rejoined. 

Oikos is the Greek word for household, and, in oikonomia, i.e., the art of managing the household, we find the etymological source for the word “economy.” This underscores that throughout most of history, economically productive activity and domestic life were once a joint reality in the home. With the Industrial Revolution, economic production shifted to the factory and the corporation, while the home was reserved for a new form of domesticity centered around consumption. But what if, Askonas and I asked, we see evidence of a new oikos arising, a third oikos, in which productive labor and the household are being rejoined? But this time, it is not based on land for the production of goods, but on digital integration into the global economy. As we put it in our National Affairs essay,

What's more, a new model of the oikos is on the rise. High-speed internet, information technology, and smaller automated machines have made possible new forms of home production. In this third oikos, production is returning to the household, but this time it is woven into global supply chains, multinational firms, and just-in-time market production.

As we emphasized, “We have only begun to grapple with the implications of this transition.” 

This project, The Third Oikos—a collaboration between the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) and the Foundation for American Innovation (FAI)—is an effort to grapple with this transition; and, wherever wise, help pave the way for its fuller arrival.

In its pilot year, The Third Oikos project will feature 10 interviews of people who are living at the frontier of technological change but who are also wrestling with the tensions in their family life. The first interview features a discussion with Jesse Genet, a homemaker expecting a seventh child, who is also the founder of Lumi, a shipping logistics company which was later acquired.

We are delighted to welcome Nicole Ruiz as director of the Third Oikos project, as well as visiting fellow at IFS and visiting fellow at FAI. You can find Nicole’s full bio here. As you can see, she is the perfect person to explore what it means to be a wife, mom, and community member, who is also using frontier technology as a tool to be (and do) these things better and, in some cases, in entirely new ways. Nicole has a keen eye for innovative technology and a heart for homemaking. But, in another sense, she will be our guide, because she is not much different from the rest of us. Everywhere we look, people are using new technologies to be parents, spouses, homemakers, producers, laborers, neighbors, teachers, and parishioners in ways we never previously imagined. As Ruiz put it in her launch essay, “'How do I live a good life?’ is an eternal human question, but it can feel like a completely new challenge today.”

It is our view that the third oikos is a good development for the American family. Research by IFS senior fellow Lyman Stone and Adam Ozimek for the Economic Innovation Group shows that access to remote work has enabled moms to spend less time commuting and more time with their children and families. They also found that remote work boosted the fertility rates of moms who already had children, as well as the marriage intentions of unmarried women who work from home (compared to unmarried women who work primarily in-office). These findings demonstrate that certain aspects of the digital age are fundamentally pro-family and could be even more so if further developed.

Certain aspects of the digital age are fundamentally pro-family and could be even more so if further developed.

But the third oikos has a dark side, too. Where it can reintegrate economic and domestic life for families, it can also be a source of fragmentation and isolation for those who are single. Recent research by Christos Makridis, for example, shows that remote work can be a suppressant of socialization among many young adult Americans. Makridis finds that, “Among remote-heavy workers in their early 30s, time spent socializing during leisure has dropped from 70% to 55% since 2019.” Are we seeing the rise of a whole new class of economically productive but socially isolated people? Those who would be trapped in this fragmentary state (even if they personally chose it) might have worsened marriage prospects and potentially fatal degrees of isolation.

Remote work, however, is only one pro-family possibility. Family-owned organic farms are relying on Facebook groups to access markets that they would otherwise be unable to serve, and Starlink makes it feasible for domestic businesses to operate far beyond the boundaries of established internet networks. Chest freezers, likewise, have become an essential means of storage for these businesses; and 3D printing and other new small-scale design and manufacturing platforms offer the potential for a whole new form of the domestic economy. These technologies could provide the foundations of a new homestead for the 21st Century.

For the third oikos to continue its rise—and for it to be good for the future of the family—we must see and understand it clearly. Above all, that is what this project is intended to help us do. Or, as Ruiz concludes in her launch essay, “What does the good life look like in the third oikos? I don’t exactly know yet, but join me and let’s figure it out.” Welcome to the third oikos.

Michael Toscano is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Family First Technology Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies. 

*Photo credit: Shutterstock