Gender Power, Fertility, and Family Policy

Konferenzbeitrag

The birth of children often shifts the power balance within a family. If family decisions are made according to the spouses' welfare function, this shift in power may lead to a time consistency problem. The allocation of resources after the birth of children may differ from the ex-ante optimal choice. In a model of cooperative decision making within a family, we show that this time consistency problem leads to a systematic downward bias in fertility choices. By keeping fertility low, families try to mitigate the ex-ante undesired shift in the power balance. This bias in fertility choices provides scope for welfare enhancing policy intervention. We discuss the extent to which existing measures in family policy are suitable to overcome the fertility bias.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2013: Wettbewerbspolitik und Regulierung in einer globalen Wirtschaftsordnung - Session: Family and Fertility ; No. A11-V2

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation ; Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth ; Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents: Household

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Kemnitz, Alexander ; Thum, Marcel
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
• (where): Kiel und Hamburg
• (when): 2013

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/79827
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET