Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family

Awards:   Nominated for William J. Goode Book Award 2009
Author:   Nancy Folbre
Publisher:   Harvard University Press
ISBN:  

9780674047273


Pages:   248
Publication Date:   15 March 2010
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
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Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family


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Awards

  • Nominated for William J. Goode Book Award 2009

Overview

Full Product Details

Author:   Nancy Folbre
Publisher:   Harvard University Press
Imprint:   Harvard University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.372kg
ISBN:  

9780674047273


ISBN 10:   0674047273
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   15 March 2010
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Conceptualizing the Costs of Children 1. Children and the Economy 2. Commitments and Capabilities Part 2: Private Spending on Children in the United States 3. Defining the Costs of Children 4. Children and Family Budgets with Tamara Ohler 5. Children outside the Household 6. Accounting for Family Time with Jayoung Yoon 7. Valuing Family Work Part 3: Public Spending on Children in the United States 8. Subsidizing Parents 9. Public Spending on Children's Education and Health 10. Who Should Pay for the Kids? Notes Index

Reviews

In this capstone work, Folbre, long a critic of the neoclassical economics approach to the family, adumbrates arguments regarding what is wrong with how economists and governments conceptualize and measure the workings of the family, using children as her fulcrum. Children reside at the intersection of family and the state, the marketplace, and the past and future. Benefit-cost accounting of children is woefully inadequate, and society lacks consensus regarding who actually bears costs; what impacts private and public expenditures have on child outcomes; what optimal expenditures might be; and what cost-benefit apportionment rubric stakeholders should employ. Folbre systematically addresses questions surrounding the value of children. Although some answers will not surprise, her unpacking of time, goods, and federal and state program costs and benefits both informs and provokes new thinking. The critical question is, who should pay for kids? The payees and benefit claimants are parents, earlier and subsequent familial generations, children themselves, and society via its government. What should hold these disparate groups together, Folbre implores, is the notion of moral obligation. Would that her vision becomes reality. -- D. J. Conger Choice 20080701 Folbre...shows why universal childcare should be the ultimate feminist issue. By focusing on the numbers in a new way, Folbre's Valuing Children has the most potential for reframing the debate. She may have the cool eye of an economist, but she strips the need to care for all children of its cultural baggage. -- Martha Nichols Women's Review of Books 890901


In this capstone work, Folbre, long a critic of the neoclassical economics approach to the family, adumbrates arguments regarding what is wrong with how economists and governments conceptualize and measure the workings of the family, using children as her fulcrum. Children reside at the intersection of family and the state, the marketplace, and the past and future. Benefit-cost accounting of children is woefully inadequate, and society lacks consensus regarding who actually bears costs; what impacts private and public expenditures have on child outcomes; what optimal expenditures might be; and what cost-benefit apportionment rubric stakeholders should employ. Folbre systematically addresses questions surrounding the value of children. Although some answers will not surprise, her unpacking of time, goods, and federal and state program costs and benefits both informs and provokes new thinking. The critical question is, who should pay for kids? The payees and benefit claimants are parents, earlier and subsequent familial generations, children themselves, and society via its government. What should hold these disparate groups together, Folbre implores, is the notion of moral obligation. Would that her vision becomes reality. -- D. J. Conger Choice 20080701 Folbre...shows why universal childcare should be the ultimate feminist issue. By focusing on the numbers in a new way, Folbre's Valuing Children has the most potential for reframing the debate. She may have the cool eye of an economist, but she strips the need to care for all children of its cultural baggage. -- Martha Nichols Women's Review of Books 890901


Author Information

Nancy Folbre is Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

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