Are Babies Consumer Durables?: A Critique of the Economic Theory of Reproductive Motivation

An economist (Gary Becker) argues that the economic theory of demand for consumer durables can be applied to the analysis of reproductive motivation. Since he says under modern conditions the desire for children is analogous to the demand for consumer durables it is positively related to income and actual fertility will be so related when all classes have equal access to contraception. This thesis is subject to criticism both on theoretical and empirical grounds. Theoretically it overlooks the crucial importance for family-size goals of the institutional context in which reproduction takes place. When one takes this context into account one sees that the quantity income elasticity of family-size goals posited by Becker is a false trail. It is evident that although credit limits the acquisition of consumer durables no similar mechanism operates to adjust family size to income. The analogy with consumer durables is inapplicable because parents are producers as well as consumers of children children are not mere instrumentalities that can be bought and sold and the `utilities involved in having them (and hence `tastes for children) are built into the institutional structure of reproduction. In addition not only are the direct costs of offspring positively related to class but the indirect costs as well (overlooked by Becker) are higher for the well-to-do. Given the deficiencies of the theory it is not surprising that empirical evidence also casts doubt on Beckers thesis. The instances cited by Becker himself can be shown to be either questionable or spurious. In addition data on family-size ideals from 13 polls and surveys in the United States using national samples of whites collected over a thirty-year period show either identical or inverse relationships with income levels among non-Catholics. A positive relation with income is associated only with some powerful pro-natalist non-economic influence such as Catholicism. (authors)