A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

A Treatise on the Family

NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

We explore in this chapter questions of existence and uniqueness for solutions to stochastic differential equations and offer a study of their properties. This endeavor is really a study of diffusion processes. Loosely speaking, the term diffusion is attributed to a Markov process which has continuous sample paths and can be characterized in terms of its infinitesimal generator.

Stochastic Differential Equations

This article argues that marriage has undergone a process of deinstitutionalization—a weakening of the social norms that define partners’ behavior—over the past few decades. Examples are presented involving the increasing number and complexity of cohabiting unions and the emergence of same-sex marriage. Two transitions in the meaning of marriage that occurred in the United States during the 20th century have created the social context for deinstitutionalization. The first transition, noted by Ernest Burgess, was from the institutional marriage to the companionate marriage. The second transition was to the individualized marriage in which the emphasis on personal choice and self-development expanded. Although the practical importance of marriage has declined, its symbolic significance has remained high and may even have increased. It has become a marker of prestige and personal achievement. Examples of its symbolic significance are presented. The implications for the current state of marriage and its future direction are discussed. A quarter century ago, in an article entitled ‘‘Remarriage as an Incomplete Institution’’ (Cherlin, 1978), I argued that American society lacked norms about the way that members of stepfamilies should act toward each other. Parents and children in first marriages, in contrast, could rely on well-established norms, such as when it is appropriate to discipline a child. I predicted that, over time, as remarriage after divorce became common, norms would begin to emerge concerning proper behavior in stepfamilies—for example, what kind of relationship a stepfather should have with his stepchildren. In other words, I expected that remarriage would become institutionalized, that it would become more like first marriage. But just the opposite has happened. Remarriage has not become more like first marriage; rather, first marriage has become more like remarriage. Instead of the institutionalization of remarriage,

https://soc.jhu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2012/02/Cherlin_JMFmarriagepaper.pdf

The deinstitutionalization of American marriage

In this article, I argue that the trends associated with the second demographic transition are following two trajectories and leading to greater disparities in children’s resources. Whereas children who were born to the most-educated women are gaining resources, in terms of parents’ time and money, those who were born to the least-educated women are losing resources. The forces behind these changes include feminism, new birth control technologies, changes in labor market opportunities, and welfare-state policies. I contend that Americans should be concerned about the growing disparity in parental resources and that the government can do more to close the gap between rich and poor children.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1515222.pdf

Diverging destinies: How children are faring under the second demographic transition

Do recent declines in first marriage rates signal that an increasing proportion of women will remain single their entire lives, or merely that they are postponing marriage to older ages? Our forecasts for cohorts born in the 1950s and 1960s suggest that marriage will remain nearly universal for American women-close to 90 percent of women are predicted to marry. However, separate forecasts by educational attainment reveal a new socioeconomic pattern of first marriage: Whereas in the past, women with more education were less likely to marry, recent college graduates are now forecast to marry at higher levels despite their later entry into first marriage. This educational crossover, which occurs for both black women and white women in recent cohorts, suggests that marriage is increasingly becoming a province of the most educated, a trend that may become a new source of inequality for future generations. Forecasts presented here use data from the 1995 Current Population Survey and compare estimates from the Hernes model with those from the Coale-McNeil model

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3088920.pdf

Marriage Delayed or Marriage Forgone? New Cohort Forecasts of First Marriage for U.S. Women

Period fertility rates fell to previously unseen low levels in a large number of countries beginning in the early 1990s. The persistence of Total Fertility Rates under 1.3 raised the possibility of dramatic, rapid population aging as well as population decline. In an analysis of recent trends, we find, however, a widespread turn-around in so-called "lowest-low" fertility countries. The reversal has been particularly vigorous in Europe. The number of countries with period total fertility rates less than 1.3 fell from 21 in 2003 to five in 2008, of which four (Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan) are in East Asia. Moreover, the upturn in the period TFR was not confined to lowest-fertility countries, but affected the whole developed world. We explore the demographic explanations for the recent rise in fertility stemming from fertility timing effects as well as economic, policy, and social factors. Although the current economic crisis may push down fertility in the short-run, we conclude that formerly lowest-low fertility countries should continue to see further increase in fertility as the transitory effects of shifts to later motherhood become less and less important.

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The End of “Lowest‐Low” Fertility?

Period fertility started to drop significantly below replacement in most Western European countries during the 1970s and 1980s, while most fertility surveys, value studies and opinion polls have found that the number of children considered ideal for society or for one's own family has remained above two children per woman. These surveys have led to the expectation that, sooner or later, period fertility would recover in Europe. The most recent data from the Eurobarometer 2001 survey, however, suggest that in the German-speaking parts of Europe the average ideal family sizes given by younger men and women have fallen as low as 1.7 children. This paper examines the consistency and the credibility of these new findings, which - if they are indeed indications of a new trend - may alter the current discussion about future fertility trends in Europe.

/pdf/the-emergence-of-sub-replacement-family-size-ideals-in-48vlaij354.pdf

The emergence of Sub-Replacement Family Size Ideals in Europe

OBJECTIVEThis paper provides recent cross-national evidence of the impact of the great recession on fertility in Europe in the context of the recent decade.METHODSUsing data from the Human Fertility Database (HFD), from Eurostat, and from the OECD database, we employ fixed-effects modeling to study how changes in unemployment rates have affected birth rates across Europe.RESULTSWe find that countries that were hit hard by the recession show reduced fertility when compared with a continuation of recent trends, especially at younger ages.CONCLUSIONOur results indicate a strong relationship between economic conditions and fertility. However, there is variation by region, age, and parity suggesting the importance of life course and institutional factors.(ProQuest: ... denotes formula omitted.)1. Recent fertility development in Europe: Between trend reversal and economic crisisThe relationship between economic conditions and fertility is one of the classic research questions in family demography. Since the work of Malthus, much of the empirical literature on the determinants of fertility dynamics has been motivated by the idea that economic hardship and labor market uncertainties will cause people to postpone or revise their fertility plans (e.g., Adsera 2004; Sobotka, Skirbekk, and Philipov 2011; Hofmann and Hohmeyer 2012; Schmitt 2012). Since the global financial crisis swept across Europe starting in 2007, there has been renewed interest in the question of whether increasing unemployment rates and growing labor market uncertainties will have repercussions for fertility development.Unlike previous recessions and economic upheavals, the current recession is hitting Europe after a period during which the age at childbearing had continuously increased. Although a flattening out in the age at first childbearing has been reported for some European countries, it has leveled off at a relatively high level. Furthermore, the financial crisis hit Europe at a time when many countries had just started to see modest increases in their period fertility rates (Goldstein, Sobotka, and Jasilioniene 2009). In Greece, for example, an increase in the total fertility rate (TFR) that began at the turn of the century came to a halt in 2009 when the Greek economy started to crumble. From 2010 to 2011, Greece saw a decline in total fertility from 1.5 to 1.4. A similar reversal in positive fertility trends occurred in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Romania and Spain. Most remarkable were the developments in Latvia: When unemployment rates skyrocketed, fertility rates plummeted from 1.6 in 2008 to only 1.3 in 2011. Meanwhile, the neighboring country of Lithuania, where unemployment increased at a similar pace, did not experience any strong reaction in annual birth rates over the same period. In Portugal and Italy, which were also harshly affected by the recession, the TFR has also not yet reacted to the surge in unemployment thus far. The Nordic countries of Europe, which were only mildly affected by the recession, saw an unexpected but very uniform decline in total fertility in 2011 (see Figure A1 in appendix).This overview suggests that changes in fertility in response to the crisis have not been universal. It shows that fertility rates have declined in response to the crisis in several countries. In other countries, the economic crisis disrupted the positive fertility trend that began around the turn of the century. This positive trend has largely been attributed to a gradual end to fertility postponement, which had suppressed annual fertility rates (Goldstein, Sobotka, and Jasilioniene 2009). Researchers also noted that many European countries had implemented family-friendly policies prior to the onset of the crisis, which may have created an environment that is more conducive to fertility (Thevenon 2011; Fagnani 2012). Ideational changes, particularly a resurgence of more traditional family values among the recent cohorts, have also been cited as potential reasons for the reversal in fertility trends (Goldstein, Kreyenfeld, and Rosger 2012). …

/pdf/fertility-reactions-to-the-great-recession-in-europe-recent-3npf1tnmcj.pdf

Fertility reactions to the 'Great Recession' in Europe: Recent evidence from order-specific data

Is the recent plateau in crude divorce rates due to compositional changes in the married population or to a fundamental change in the long-term trend of rising marital instability? I use refined measures of period divorce rates to show that the leveling of divorce rates appears to be real. Compositional factors do little to explain the end to the more than century-long pattern of rising divorce. Increases in cohabitation also fail to explain the plateau. New theories are needed to explain the determinants of divorce rates at the population level.

Joshua R. Goldstein

Papers

Marriage Delayed or Marriage Forgone? New Cohort Forecasts of First Marriage for U.S. Women

The End of “Lowest‐Low” Fertility?

The emergence of Sub-Replacement Family Size Ideals in Europe

Fertility reactions to the 'Great Recession' in Europe: Recent evidence from order-specific data

The leveling of divorce in the United States.