Of Patriarchy Born: The Political Economy of Fertility DecisionsEver since Malthus condenmed the brutishness of a working class that mindlessly reproduced itself, social scientists have had a tendency to assume that reproductive behavior could not be readily explained by rational motives.Even thqsc willing to concede the existence of intelligcnt choice in modern industrial societies have continued to assume that families in underdeveloped agrarian societies are bound by traditional and often irrational attitudes.
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Nancy Folbre (1983) studied this question.
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