Excellent presentation on "How Much Is A Baby Worth".
I want to make a comment on the slide about how many babies people would like to have, which includes the text:
"Ideal number of children, commonly seen as 2-3;
Personally desired, a little above 2;
Expected, a little below 2;
Actual, ~1.5 and falling in developed countries."
Would I be correct in guessing that the "Personally desired" figure is derived from surveys which ask people their preferred number of children? If so, an important point to remember is that people tend to answer such survey questions in abstraction from all the other considerations that actually bear on the number of children they will eventually have, e.g. their aspirations for higher education, their career goals, their leisure interests, where they would like to live and in what kind of accommodation, etc. The actual decision to birth a child is far from abstract and all manner of material considerations (including opportunity costs of e.g. income foregone, reduced superannuation, etc) come to bear on it.
I also think Julia Gillard was onto something very important with her "decision creep" comment.
Excellent presentation on "How Much Is A Baby Worth".
I want to make a comment on the slide about how many babies people would like to have, which includes the text:
"Ideal number of children, commonly seen as 2-3;
Personally desired, a little above 2;
Expected, a little below 2;
Actual, ~1.5 and falling in developed countries."
Would I be correct in guessing that the "Personally desired" figure is derived from surveys which ask people their preferred number of children? If so, an important point to remember is that people tend to answer such survey questions in abstraction from all the other considerations that actually bear on the number of children they will eventually have, e.g. their aspirations for higher education, their career goals, their leisure interests, where they would like to live and in what kind of accommodation, etc. The actual decision to birth a child is far from abstract and all manner of material considerations (including opportunity costs of e.g. income foregone, reduced superannuation, etc) come to bear on it.
I also think Julia Gillard was onto something very important with her "decision creep" comment.
I agree entirely with this analysis - my discussion of the slide made the same points