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

The role of improved schooling, a central part of most development strategies, has become controversial because expansion of school attainment has not guaranteed improved economic conditions. This paper reviews the role of cognitive skills in promoting economic well-being, with a particular focus on the role of school quality and quantity. It concludes that there is strong evidence that the cognitive skills of the population – rather than mere school attainment – are powerfully related to individual earnings, to the distribution of income, and to economic growth. New empirical results show the importance of both minimal and high level skills, the complementarity of skills and quality of economic institutions, and robustness of the relationship between skills and growth. International comparisons incorporating expanded data on cognitive skills reveal much larger skill deficits in developing countries than generally derived from just school enrollment and attainment. The magnitude of change needed makes clear that closing the economic gap with developed countries will require major structural changes in schooling institutions.

The role of cognitive skills in economic development

The role of improved schooling, a central part of most development strategies, has become controversial because expansion of school attainment has not guaranteed improved economic conditions. This paper reviews the role of cognitive skills in pro- moting economic well-being, with a particular focus on the role of school quality and quantity. It concludes that there is strong evidence that the cognitive skills of the population—rather than mere school attainment—are powerfully related to indi- vidual earnings, to the distribution of income, and to economic growth. New empiri- cal results show the importance of both minimal and high level skills, the comple- mentarity of skills and the quality of economic institutions, and the robustness of the relationship between skills and growth. International comparisons incorporating expanded data on cognitive skills reveal much larger skill deficits in developing coun - tries than generally derived from just school enrollment and attainment. The mag- nitude of change needed makes clear that closing the economic gap with developed countries will require major structural changes in schooling institutions.

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The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development

The Statistics of Canada

When politicians point to the high social costs and taxpayer burden imposed by disintegrating `family values they overlook the fact that individuals do not simply make the decisions that lead to unwed parenthood marriage or divorce on the basis of what is good for society. They weigh the costs and benefits of each of these choices to themselves--and sometimes their children. But how much do individuals know about these costs and benefits? I think that we as demographers have something to contribute here. As individual researchers we investigate the relationship between marriage and longevity wealth earnings or childrens achievements but we rarely try to pull all this evidence together. I would like to argue that we have an opportunity and an obligation to do that and to tell people what their decisions about marriage and family potentially mean for them as individuals. That is my objective here. (EXCERPT)

Does Marriage Matter

Le present document a pour but d'examiner la variabilite des gains des travailleurs au Canada de 1982 a 2000 selon une approche descriptive graphique a l'aide du fichier de la banque de Donnees administratives longitudinales. A l'exemple de Gottschalk et Moffitt (1994), nous decomposons la variance totale des gains des travailleurs en une composante ou de long terme d'inegalite entre les travailleurs et une composante ou d'instabilite des gains d'une annee a l'autre au cours du temps pour des travailleurs particuliers. Nous appliquons la decomposition a une periode d'observation mobile de cinq ans. Plusieurs resultats se degagent de l'analyse. Premierement, l'accroissement general de la variance totale des gains au cours de la periode de reference reflete des profils assez differents d'evolution des composantes individuelles. L'inegalite de long terme des gains a generalement augmente au cours de la periode, tandis que l'instabilite des gains d'une annee a l'autre a diminue assez regulierement. Les variations de la variabilite totale des gains ont ete dictees principalement par des variations de l'inegalite de long terme des gains. Deuxiemement, les profils d'evolution des deux composantes de la variance revelent des differences importantes entre les hommes et les femmes. Depuis le debut des annees 1990, l'inegalite de long terme des gains n'a cesse de s'accentuer chez les hommes, mais s'est reduite considerablement chez les femmes. Depuis la fin des annees 1980, l'instabilite des gains a diminue assez regulierement chez les femmes, mais a suivi une evolution plus cyclique chez les hommes. Troisiemement, les profils des deux composantes de la variance en fonction de l'age sont presque opposes. L'inegalite de long terme des gains augmente generalement avec l'age, si bien qu'elle est beaucoup plus prononcee chez les travailleurs d'age avance. Par contre, l'instabilite des gains diminue generalement avec l'age, de sorte qu'elle est nettement plus grande chez les travailleurs debutants.

Inegalite de long terme et instabilite annuelle des gains des hommes et des femmes au Canada

L'aide des donnees de trois reprises (1982, 1986 et 1990) de l'Enquete nationale aupres des diplomes (END), nous analyserons, a l'aide du modele des hasards proportionnels de Cox, le temps que prennent les diplomes des universites canadiennes a occuper un emploi a temps plein qui dure au moins six mois. D'apres nos resultats, la rapidite du passage des etudes au travail varierait amplement dans et entre les cohortes. Il semblerait aussi que les differences de duree de recherche d'un premier emploi entre les cohortes END ne tiennent pas uniquement a des differences de conjoncture economique au moment de l'obtention du diplome. Pour certaines tranches de duree, les tendances de l'occupation d'un premier emploi se ressemblent entre les cohortes. A l'interieur de ces dernieres, on releve des differences tenues de passage des etudes au travail entre certains groupes demographiques et, dans quelques cas, les ecarts sont stables de cohorte en cohorte.

Passage des études au travail chez les diplômés des universités canadiennes : durée de recherche d'un premier emploi, 1982-1990

Dans ce document, on presente les resultats d'une analyse empirique de l'ecart entre les gains des hommes et des femmes ayant recemment obtenu un diplome de baccalaureat dans les universites canadiennes. Les heures de travail constituent l'influence la plus importante, tandis que l'experience de travail anterieure, les caracteristiques de l'emploi, la situation familiale, la province de residence et la langue ont des effets plus faibles et plus mixtes.

http://publications.gc.ca/Collection/Statcan/11F0019MIF/11F0019MIF2004235.pdf

Ross Finnie

Papers

Inegalite de long terme et instabilite annuelle des gains des hommes et des femmes au Canada

Passage des études au travail chez les diplômés des universités canadiennes : durée de recherche d'un premier emploi, 1982-1990

L'evolution de l'ecart des gains entre les sexes chez les diplomes des universites canadiennes