ECON 782: Economics of the Family Instructor Course Overview

UMass Amherst, Fall 2013 ECON 782, Murray-Close

ECON 782: Economics of the Family Fall 2013 Monday 1:00-3:30 Thompson Hall, Room 919

Instructor

Marta Murray-Close Oﬃce: Thompson 1018 E-mail: [email protected] Telephone: 413-545-3412 Oﬃce hours: Mo 9:30-10:30, Th 1:30-2:30, and by appointment

Course overview

This course provides an introduction to the “economic” approach to family research. I put “economic” in scare quotes because we will take as our point of departure a particular economic approach: the rational choice approach pio- neered by Gary Becker in his Treatise on the Family and related work. We will examine the assumptions underlying rational choice models of family behavior, assess the plausibility of those assumptions, and discuss whether and to what extent rational choice models can help us understand the form and function- ing of families. We will also examine critiques of the economic approach from feminist, sociological, and other perspectives. You may already have an opinion about rational choice models in general, the application of rational choice models to the family in particular, or Gary Becker. By the end of the semester, you may or may not have changed your opinion, but you will be a more nuanced and sophisticated fan or critic than many commentators on the family.

Family economics is a fascinating field because it touches on issues with which we all have personal experience and because it provides theoretical and empirical insight into current controversies over modern families. This class will ask and provide at least partial answers to the following sorts of questions: How have families changed over the last century? Do family members behave selfishly or altruistically toward one another? How do they made decisions when their interests diverge? Why do people get married? Why don’t they get married? What kinds of people marry each other and why? Why have men and women traditionally played different roles in the family? Is the sexual division of labor a great idea for everyone? A bad idea for women? How do people decide whether or not to have children and how many children to have? Why are they having fewer children than they used to? How do public policies influence family behavior?

1 This version: September 9, 2013 UMass Amherst, Fall 2013 ECON 782, Murray-Close

In addition to introducing you to substantive content in the field of family economics, this course offers opportunities to develop your own research interests and to strengthen your research and presentation skills. My specific objectives for you this semester are the following.

• Describe demographic trends and changes in the family over the last century.

• Explain the “economic” approach to family research and how the economic approach diﬀers from other approaches. • Critically evaluate the economic approach and give your own assessment of its strengths and limitations. • Summarize studies from the foundation and frontier of family research and use those studies to motivate your own research. • Present, clearly and concisely, the motivation, methods, and results of your own research and research by others. • Make substantial progress on an original research project that may become a part of your dissertation or a publishable paper.

Class format

This will be an interactive, discussion-oriented class. Depending on the material, I may take some time at the beginning of class to highlight key terms or concepts from the readings, but we’ll spend most of each meeting discussing the readings and your reactions to them. A student will lead the discussion most weeks, and I’ll ﬁll in as needed depending on enrollment. I’ll also reserve a few minutes at the end of each class to discuss questions I’ve prepared for us in advance of the readings for the following week. To do high-quality research, it is essential to familiarize yourself with the research frontier in your area of interest. But to do creative research, it is also advisable to do some thinking about a topic yourself before you read too much about what others have been thinking. Having framed the issues or questions for yourself, you may be surprised at the framing others have used – and you may ﬁnd that your own approach contains insights that others have missed.

Prerequisites

This course is open to graduate students in economics and other social and be- havioral science fields. Because students from different departments will have different backgrounds, my expectations regarding the form – but not the rigor

2 This version: September 9, 2013 UMass Amherst, Fall 2013 ECON 782, Murray-Close or quality – of your work will depend to some extent on your ﬁeld. Eco- nomics students should have completed graduate-level microeconomic theory and econometrics, and students from other departments should have completed a graduate-level theory course and a statistics or quantitative methods course.

Course components

Response papers (35%). Starting in the second week of the semester and continuing through the twelfth week, students will submit a 2-3 page response paper that provides a brief summary of each assigned reading and describes your reactions to the readings. You may discuss strengths and weaknesses of the individual readings, themes and connections between the readings, or some combination of both. Summarizing the readings is a way to ensure that you’ve identiﬁed the main points, but your reactions are more important than your summaries. Accordingly, you should allocate no more than one page of each reaction paper to the summaries and should be sure to allocate at least one page to your reactions. Please post your response paper to Moodle at least 24 hours before class.

Discussion leading (15%). Each student will lead our class discussion twice during the semester. The discussion leader will present a short summary of each reading and prepare a list of at least eight discussion questions for the class. Presenting material is one of the best ways to master it, and strong presentation skills are a tremendous asset in a research or teaching career.

Research proposal (35%). Students will prepare a 10-20 page proposal for a research project on a topic in family economics. Your proposal should include the motivation for your project, including the gap in the existing literature that you will ﬁll; a statement of your research question; and a description of the data and methods you will use to answer the question. You should also include at least one of the following (1) a set of preliminary results or (2) a summary of your expected results. A one-page outline of the proposal is due in class on October 15, and the full proposal is due on the last day of class.

Presentation of research proposal (15%). Students will present their research proposals on the last day of class. Presentations should cover each ele- ment of the proposal (motivation, question, data, methods, and preliminary or expected results) and should be no more than 25 minutes long.

3 This version: September 9, 2013 UMass Amherst, Fall 2013 ECON 782, Murray-Close

Contacting me

E-mail is the best way to reach me. During the week, I try to respond to messages within a day. Sometimes, if I’m really busy, I may need two days. If you don’t hear back from me within two work days, please feel free to send me a reminder. I don’t always check e-mail over the weekend, so I may not respond to messages you send on Friday until the following Monday.

Course schedule

This is a tentative schedule of the topics we’ll cover during the semester, along with a list of required readings for each topic. I’ve listed the readings in the order I think it makes most sense to read them. I suggest that you purchase a copy of Becker’s A Treatise on the Family because we will read several chapters of the book and because it is an essential reference for social scientists who study the family. Most of the remaining readings are available in electronic format through the library system, and I will post readings that are not easily accessible on Moodle. Depending on our pace and your level of interest, I may spend more or less time than indicated on some topics. I may also make substitutions in the readings. If I make substantial changes to the schedule, I will provide you, via e-mail or the course website, with updated an syllabus that reﬂects the changes.

Week Date Topics Readings 1 09/09 Demographic trends and Lundberg and Pollak(2007) family change 2 09/16 The “economic” approach Becker(1993) to family research Bergmann(1996) Pollak(2003) 3 09/23 Empirical methods in Moffitt(2005) family research Waite(1995) Angrist and Evans(1998) 4 09/30 Gains from marriage Weiss(1997), Sections 1-2 Stevenson and Wolfers(2007) Polikoff(2003) 5 10/07 Household specialization Becker(1991), Chapter 2 and the sexual division of Hadfield(1999) labor Badgett and Folbre(1999)

4 This version: September 9, 2013 UMass Amherst, Fall 2013 ECON 782, Murray-Close

Week Date Topics Readings 6 10/15 Models of household Lundberg and Pollak(1996) behavior Becker(1991), Chapter 8 Due: outline of Lundberg and Pollak(2003) research proposal 7 10/21 Gender and household Lundberg and Pollak(1993) bargaining Agarwal(1997) Stevenson and Wolfers(2006) 8 10/28 Marriage markets and Becker(1991), Chapter 4 assortative mating Lam(1988) Jepsen and Jepsen(2002) 9 11/04 Fertility, contraception, Becker(1991), Chapter 5 and investments in Bailey(2006) children Lam and Duryea(1999) 10 11/13 Non-marital fertility Akerlof et al.(1996) Willis(1999) Gibson-Davis et al.(2005) 11 11/18 Non-traditional and Black et al.(2007) non-marital households Xie et al.(2003) TBD 12 11/25 Intergenerational ties Lillard and Willis(1997) Rainer and Siedler(2009) Folbre(1994) 13 12/02 Presentations of research proposals Due: ﬁnal draft research proposal

5 This version: September 9, 2013 UMass Amherst, Fall 2013 ECON 782, Murray-Close

Full references

Agarwal, Bina (1997) “‘Bargaining’ and Gender Relations: Within and Beyond the Household,” Feminist Economics, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 1–51. Akerlof, George A., Janet L. Yellen, and Michael L. Katz (1996) “An Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 111, No. 2, pp. 277–317.

Angrist, Joshua D. and William N. Evans (1998) “Children and Their Par- ents’ Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 88, No. 3, pp. 450–477. Badgett, MV and Nancy Folbre (1999) “Assigning care: Gender norms and economic outcomes,” International Labour Review, Vol. 138, No. 3, pp. 311– 326. Bailey, Martha J. (2006) “More Power to the Pill: The Impact of Contraceptive Freedom on Women’s Life Cycle Labor Supply,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 121, No. 1, pp. 289–320. Becker, Gary S. (1991) A Treatise on the Family, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, enlarged edition. Becker, Gary S. (1993) “Nobel Lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 101, No. 3, pp. 385–409. Bergmann, Barbara R (1996) “Becker’s Theory of the Family: Preposterous Conclusions,” Challenge, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 9–12. Black, Dan A., Seth G. Sanders, and Lowell J. Taylor (2007) “The Economics of Lesbian and Gay Families,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 53–70. Folbre, Nancy (1994) “Children as Public Goods,” American Economic Review, Vol. 84, No. 2, pp. 86–90. Gibson-Davis, Christina M., Kathryn Edin, and Sara McLanahan (2005) “High Hopes but Even Higher Expectations: The Retreat From Marriage Among Low-Income Couples,” Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 67, No. 5, pp. 1301–1312.

Hadﬁeld, Gillian K. (1999) “A Coordination Model of the Sexual Division of Labor,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 125–153. Jepsen, Lisa K. and Christopher A. Jepsen (2002) “An Empirical Analysis of the Matching Patterns of Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Couples,” Demography, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 435–453.

6 This version: September 9, 2013 UMass Amherst, Fall 2013 ECON 782, Murray-Close

Lam, David (1988) “Marriage Markets and Assortative Mating with Household Public Goods: Theoretical Results and Empirical Implications,” Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 462–487. Lam, David and Suzanne Duryea (1999) “Effects of Schooling on Fertility, La- bor Supply, and Investments in Children, with Evidence from Brazil,” The Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 160–192. Lillard, Lee A. and Robert J. Willis (1997) “Motives for Intergenerational Trans- fers: Evidence from Malaysia,” Demography, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 115–134. Lundberg, Shelly and Robert A. Pollak (1993) “Separate Spheres Bargaining and the Marriage Market,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 101, No. 6, pp. 988–1010. Lundberg, Shelly and Robert A Pollak (1996) “Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage,” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 139– 158. Lundberg, Shelly and Robert A. Pollak (2003) “Efficiency in Marriage,” Review of Economics of the Household, Vol. 1, pp. 153–167. Lundberg, Shelly and Robert A. Pollak (2007) “The American Family and Fam- ily Economics,” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 3–26. Moffitt, Robert (2005) “Remarks on the Analysis of Causal Relationships in Population Research,” Demography, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 91–108. Polikoff, Nancy D. (2003) “Ending Marriage As We Know It,” Hofstra Law Review, Vol. 32, pp. 201–232. Pollak, Robert A. (2003) “Gary Becker’s Contributions to Family and Household Economics,” Review of Economics of the Household, Vol. 1, No. 1-2, pp. 111– 141, Copyright - Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers Jan-Apr 2003; Last updated - 2010-06-09. Rainer, Helmut and Thomas Siedler (2009) “O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Effects of Having a Sibling on Geographic Mobility and Labour Market Out- comes,” Economica, Vol. 76, No. 303, pp. 528–556. Stevenson, Betsey and Justin Wolfers (2006) “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress,” The Quarterly Journal of Eco- nomics, Vol. 121, No. 1, pp. 267–288. Stevenson, Betsey and Justin Wolfers (2007) “Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces,” Working Paper 12944, National Bureau of Eco- nomic Research. Waite, Linda J (1995) “Does marriage matter?” Demography, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 483–507.

7 This version: September 9, 2013 UMass Amherst, Fall 2013 ECON 782, Murray-Close

Weiss, Yoram (1997) “The Formation and Dissolution of Families: Why Marry? Who Marries Whom? And What Happens Upon Divorce?” in Mark R. Rosenzweig and Oded Stark eds. Handbook of Population and Family Eco- nomics, Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 81–123. Willis, Robert J. (1999) “A Theory of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 107, No. S6, pp. S33–S64. Xie, Yu, James M Raymo, Kimberl Goyette, and Arland Thornton (2003) “Eco- nomic Potential and Entry into Marriage and Cohabitation,” Demography, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 351–367.

8 This version: September 9, 2013