Gary S. Becker. A Treatise on the Family

The word economics comes from a Greek root meaning "household rules," or in modern terms household management. Only with the rise of Political Economy in the eighteenth century did the word acquire its present meaning of the study of exchange relations in the public sphere, the market. As more and more functions such as cooking, eating and child care have been moved out of the household and into the market, the role of the family in this public economy might seem to have declined. In fact, however, suggests Gary S. Becker in A Treatise on the Family, the family has an economic life that extends far beyond the production or consumption of material goods.

We tend to isolate family life from "economic" life, and resist the imposition of economic terms on family relationships. As a simple, everyday instance, we may regard a holiday or birthday gift of money as less appealing than some other gift because of the impersonal character of cash. Yet the cash is likely to be more efficient in terms of material gratification than a gift of the same value, since with the money we can select our own gift. We value the money gift less, perhaps, because part of the gratification we seek from a holiday or birthday present is the personal bond formed by it.

This example is itself, however, a demonstration in the economic dynamics of family life. The non-material value of persona

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family size in modern developed countries (p. 95). Birth-control technology alone is not an explanation; pre-modern societies had means of family limitation, while the modern decrease in fertility preceded the widespread availability of modern means of birth control (pp. 101-102). It is extremely unlikely, perhaps, that parents reason in precisely this way. It is plausible, however, that they do reason to the same effect. When we think of preparing children for life, we think not of mere survival, but of a lifestyle comparable to our own. Certainly, preparing children for college, both in market investments (e.g., investing in a tuition fund) and internal family investments (reading to younger children, taking older ones to museums or cultural events) is a concern of modern middle-class families. The need for such extensive investment in each child tends to drive such families towards having fewer children. This argument is also consistant with another change in recent times. Fertility used to be positively related to family wealth; put simply, rich families could afford more children (p. 102). Today, it tends to be negatively related; the well-to-do have the most demanding expectations regarding investment
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Approximate Word count = 2089
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)