HL ITALIANO HOME ECONOMICS The Consequences of Changing Family Structure Nick Schulz

HOME ECONOMICS The Consequences of Changing Family Structure Nick Schulz

• a volte riesci a dire io solo se hai una famiglia o x la tua famiglia... ciò rende chiaro xchè famiglia ed economia (la scienza dell individualismo metodologico) siano tanto legate
• solidità dell unione coniugale e solidità dell unione nazionale. xchè oggi attribuiamo una differenza tanto marcata alle due cose?
• pochi matrimoni molti divorzi
• tesi: la solidità familiare incide sull economia...
• di solito si evita l argomento x nn infilarsi nel tunnel delle guerre culturali... si liquida dicendo che si tratta di scelte xsonali
• es. sensibilità al rischio e nascita fuori dal matrimonio
• ..........
• something important was often missing from the broader public discussion of economics and economic outcomes: the effects of enormous changes to the structure of American family life
• Un caso: the creasing frequency of out-of-wedlock birth
• Tesi: while intact families have always been economically significant, I will argue that they may be more important than ever.
• Una distinzione impossibile. Like many people who think about the economy, I considered the debates over family structure a cultural issue distinct from economic issues. But over time this bifurcated view became untenable.
• Un esempio. It became difficult to discuss depressed wages for low-skilled workers without also bringing out-of-wedlock birth rates among lower-class
• rates of entrepreneurial risk-taking among those raised in intact families
• L'equivoco: discussing these issues exclusively in moral terms is part of what has turned many people off from wanting to discuss the centrality of family structure. Great numbers of people simply want to avoid awkward talk of what are seen as primarily personal issues
• Il problema della famiglia. inextricably tied up with the country’s often bitter politics of race, feminism, and sexual politics.
• La tipica reazione femminista a qs preoccupazioni: “restore the patriarchy to a perceived ’50s-era heyday
• ......1 WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT CHANGING FAMILY STRUCTURE?...
• quanti cittadini di oggi sono cresciuti in una solida famiglia?
• il matrimonio è ancora forte tra le elites ma arretra presso i meno abbienti e i meno educati
• matrimoni... divorzi... nati fuori dal matrimonio
• In 2011, for the first time, fewer than 50 percent of households were made up of married couples.
• unmarried couples, childless households and single-person households are growing
• GOING TO THE CHAPEL?
• marriage is still quite strong in affluent American precincts, but there has been tremendous erosion as one moves down the income and education scale.
• While just 6 percent of children born to college-educated American mothers are born out of wedlock, the percentage for mothers with no more than a high school education is 44 percent
• DIVORCE
• Un disastro economico. But one reason for the decreasing numbers of children affected by divorce—the most important from our Home Ec standpoint—is the increase in out-of-wedlock births.
• the decline of religiosity has likely corresponded to a weakening in the family
• 3  THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF CHANGING FAMILY STRUCTURE
• After all, there are many examples of children who grew up with a single parent but went on to be successful and live normal
• Whatever anecdotes we may find, broader trends show that most of the consequences of unstable home life are negative.
• Esperti della bancarotta familiare. Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill are two scholars at the Brookings Institution
• Un libro. Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur: Growing Up with a Single Parent:
• David Ellwood and Christopher Jencks put it, From an economic perspective, the most troubling feature of family change has been the spread of single motherhood.
• HUMAN AND SOCIAL CAPITAL
• Becker e Coleman.
• Much crucial human capital is developed when people are young and throughout their adolescence.
• The family is among the most important institutions for developing human and social capital. The social critic Christopher Lasch vividly describes how the family functions
• “The union of love and discipline in the same persons. Parents first embody love and power,
• Human and social capital—including a person’s character, which is shaped by the family—constitutes a crucial part of the skill
• THE IMPORTANCE OF NONCOGNITIVE SKILLS
• James Heckman has spent many years studying the importance to economic success of skills, including noncognitive skills. “Families are major producers of skills,” Heckman says.
• These include the ability to play fairly with others, to delay gratification, to control emotions, to develop and maintain networks of friends and acquaintances, and much more.
• Inequality in skills and schools is strongly linked to inequality in family environments
• It is increasingly clear that some noncognitive skills, such as self-control, are not entirely genetic, inborn, or innate
• Plasticità della volontà. Roy Baumeister and science writer John Tierney
• ECONOMIC MOBILITY
• Thomas DeLeire and Leonard Lopoo: the first study . . . that examines how family structure is associated with the income of children when they reach adulthood, separating out the potential influence of parental income. found that “it is not true that parents’ income alone enables children to succeed
• THE FAMILY AND THE POOR
• Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, who has spent years investigating the lives and material conditions of poor people around the world, writes, “Liberals sometimes feel that it is narrow-minded to favor traditional marriage. Over time, my reporting on poverty has led me to disagree: Solid marriages have a huge beneficial impact on the lives of the poor
• ......4  THE LONG SHADOW OF THE MOYNIHAN REPORT
• monyhan: il problema è la famiglia... lui parlava dei negri
• scoperta: + occupazione ma anche + ricorso al welfare... xchè?
• nemici della diaagnosi: femministe... si accusano le libertà femminili
• civil right: ci si distrae dal problema di fondo
• il problema: tolleranza e librrtà xsonale sono valori irrinunciabili ma  che aggravano la situazione della famiglia
• Heckman has long been an advocate of large state interventions aimed at helping at-risk children. Specifically, he advocates “large investments in early childhood education
• Ma l'agensa H.  ha subito duri colpi. those who were part of the program still had out-of-wedlock birth rates well over 50 percent.
• Inoltre: interventions Heckman and others are talking about are invasive.
• STRENGTHENING INTACT FAMILIES. POLICY
• For example, one idea is to tax divorce
• Another idea is to use policy to delay divorce.
• Leah Ward Sears and William J. Doherty: New research shows that about 40 percent of US couples already well into the divorce process say that one or both of them are interested in the possibility of reconciliation.
• To address out-of-wedlock birth rates, what about ensuring that Americans, particularly the poor and middle class, have greater access to pregnancy control technologies? Sara McLanahan
• McLanahan also advocates marriage education and preparation programs that might help strengthen marriages
• develop family-friendly tax policies, such as expanding child tax credits. IMHO: diminuire la progressività delle aliquote (al fine di non penalizzare le famiglie monoreddito)
• THE LIMITS OF POLICY
• David Brooks: “influence of politics and policy is usually swamped by the influence of culture, ethnicity, psychology and a dozen other factors.”
• 6  HUMAN CAPITAL, SOCIAL CAPITAL, AND CHARACTER
• How might the government of a free society reshape the core values of its people and still leave them free?
• one of the chief mechanisms for inculcating that soft capital, the family, has weakened
• THINKING ABOUT CHARACTER
• To have good character means at least two things: empathy and self-control.
• James Q. Wilson said:  We see this when parents insist a child do his homework or practice piano instead of watching television, run with a well-behaved crowd

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