The 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund dispensed death benefits for female victims that averaged only 63% of those for male victims. Why? Special Master Kenneth Feinberg was instructed to use a formula similar to that used in U.S. courts, taking victims’ estimated future earnings into account. For more details, see his fascinating book, What is Life Worth? (Public Affairs, 1995). Women… Read more →
Year: 2008
The Motherhood Penalty
Most women know that having a child is costly and leaves them vulnerable to poverty. But most probably don’t know how these costs and risks actually measure up, especially considering important differences across women and their families. Even as you read this, highly-skilled researchers are figuring out how to “do the numbers.” About ten years ago, a new genre of… Read more →
Is it Work?
This ad from monster.com (a job-search site) caught my eye, a reminder that most people hope for a job that will be intrinsically satisfying. Neoclassical economists generally define work as an activity that is only a means to an end–people presumably work only until the utility of the additional income (or home-produced services) is no greater than the disutility of… Read more →
Children as Pets
This recent New Yorker cover satirizes the notion that children, like puppies in a store window, are just another consumer good. I think the gender stereotyping is intended as a joke, though not all viewers would take it that way. This children-as-pets notion is deeply embedded in our culture, and I’ve been fuming about it for years (See The Invisible… Read more →
Servant Sisters
A guest post by Hande Togrul (handetogrul@yahoo.com), graduate student at the University of Utah: **************************************************** Here I am as a seven-year old, dressed up for the first day of school, standing next to my evlat-lik–not my mother, or my aunt, or my sister, but my live-in pseudo sister–my caregiver. In the town of Mersin in Eastern Mediterranean Turkey, where I… Read more →
Child Care Time
When I took this picture of my friend Gaela (who is a girl, not a cat), was I engaging in photography, child care, or both? What if I stayed at Gaela’s house while her parents stepped out to a party on a Saturday night, spending most of my time curled up on the couch writing a blog entry after she… Read more →
Measuring Progress
I’m in Paris for a meeting of a new Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. It’s a city that invites reflections on the past that can make the future shimmer. Walking down the Rue des Francs Bourgeois in the Marais I recall an essay contest sponsored by a group of learned French scholars in 1759. They… Read more →
Cat Care
Guest blogger Man Yee Kan, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, pictured here with her cat Sammie, writes: I came to Oxford from Hong Kong eight years ago as a sociology graduate student and soon after that met my partner Timothy, a philosopher who is also from Hong Kong. Our favourite hobby in Oxford is to visit cats near the… Read more →
When a Commodity is Not Exactly a Commodity
Every week, the journal Science complements its published articles with one or more “Perspectives” offering a brief and informal summary of research on an important topic. I was thrilled to be invited to submit one of these recently, and chose to focus on the impact of personal interactions and emotional connections on the economics of care services. Forced to boil… Read more →
Justin Care
Most debates over family policy in the U.S. focus on comparisons with Europe, Canada, or Australia. But so much is happening in East Asia! The rapidity of fertility decline in Korea –combined with the mobilization of women’s groups there–has led to major new government initiatives. I had the opportunity to learn more when I participated in a Women’s World Conference… Read more →