At 8:10 AM -0500 10/31/00, Edward Dodson wrote:
>Ed Dodson responding...
>
>Robin Hanson wrote:
>
>> One more big puzzle:
>> 8) Why do people have fewer children as they get richer?
>>
>
>Ed here:
>My reading on the subject is that financial wealth is not the
>primary factor. The primary factor is the status of women in
>society. Women who have an opportunity to achieve education and
>status outside of the family group tend to have fewer children.
1. There is an old piece of Becker's somewhere, replying (if I
remember correctly) to a sociologist named Judith Blake, which offers
evidence that family size increases with income, ceteris paribus. He
argues that the contrary evidence reflects differential knowledge
about birth control. The evidence he provides is for Sweden, at a
point when all income groups had access to modern birth control, and
for China, at a point when none did.
2. In America in recent decades, childbearing by low income mothers
has been subsidized via the welfare laws.
--
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
