Treatise on the family

This book contains an economic approach to the family, not in the sense of an emphasis on the material aspects of family life, but in the sense of a choice-theoretic framework for analyz ing many aspects of family life.

The rational choice approach has been refined during the past two hundred years. It now assumes that individuals maximize their utility from basic preferences that do not change rapidly over time, and that the behavior of different individuals is coordinated by explicit and implicit markets. I argued in an earlier publication that the economic approach is not restricted to material goods and wants or to markets with monetary transactions, and conceptually does not distinguish be tween major and minor decisions or between emotional and o decisions

This volume uses the assumptions of maximizing behavior, le preferences, and equilibrium in implicit or explicit markets to provide a systematic analysis of the family. I build on my research during the past two decades to analyze the allocation of time to children and to market work, marriage and divorce in polygynoes as well as monop mous societies, altruism in addition to selfishness in families, intergen erational mobility, and many other aspects of the family, Although not all are considered, the systematic, unified treatment of the important aspects perhaps justifies the old-fashioned title "treatise."

My book is not written for a lay audience, but much of the material should be understandable to noneconomists familiar with basic eco nomic principles. Chapters 5, 10, and 11, including the supplement to Chapter 11, are the least technical, and appreciable portions of other chapters should also be accessible to persons having only a limited acquaintance with economic analysis. I hope they will not be put off by the terminology and techniques, for their participation is required to achieve a full development and evaluation of the rational choice approach to the family. I say this because many economists are hostile to this application of the approach, whereas increasing numbers of sociologists, anthropologists, lawyers, biologists, psychologists, and historians are using a rational choice approach or related methods to analyze the family. My "treatise" is intended for an interdisciplinary audience-for skeptics as well as for advocates.