Otherwise, perhaps people feel > a social > obligation to help support children in the society. >
This behavior might also be for PR purposes. If some textile worker is laid off b/c their labor is more expensive than foreign they might not be as likely to play the part of Marxian victim of industry to the media with all the [rationally] irational remarks that come with that if their kids were relatively cheap to provide medical insurance for. That of course assumes that employers of unskilled laborers behave similarly to the employers of skilled labor. I'd speculate that this is the case....unskilled laborers have a versatile set of skills, and a wide universe of prospective employers if they lose a job, thus the costs of groaning after losing it are low. On the other hand, an immature response if one was fired from a proffesional position might have more dire consequences, and thus possibly a lower chance of say, a fired law partner complaining to the media. Daniel L. Lurker ----- Original Message ----- From: Robin Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 5:05 pm Subject: Re: Health insurance for kids > At 02:52 PM 6/17/2003 -0500, Jeffrey Rous wrote: > >When I was in grad school, my wife's health insurance policy > through work > >allowed an employee to add a spouse for $1000 per year (I cannot > remember > >the exact numbers, but these are close) or add a spouse and > children for > >$2000 per year. And it didn't matter whether you had 1 child or 10. > > Are employees with more kids more attractive as employees? If so, > this > this could be a compensating wage. Otherwise, perhaps people feel > a social > obligation to help support children in the society. > > > > Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu > Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University > MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 > 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 > > >
