A friend mentioned recently that he thinks kids are inferior goods. He gave a very interesting justification.
First, what are inferior goods? In economic terms, it means goods that people will buy when their income level is low. However, when income level increases, they will consume less of such items.
Similar, when the local population had a much lower mean income in the 60s and 70s, families tend to be very large. Parents with 4 to 6 children were the norm. This rapid population growth worried the government till the point where the “Stop at 2″ campaign was initiated in the 80s.
Looking at the situation now, the mean income level has risen quite significantly. Logically, with higher income, couples should be able afford the costs of having more children. On the contrary, some young married couples I know are swearing off kids. In fact, the situation is now so drastic that the government has announced a whole slew of incentives to encourage child birth.
Does this social behaviour give justification to the phrase “kids are akin to inferior goods”? This is a bit crude but there is some logic in it 
Looking strictly from this economic viewpoint it does give some justification to the phrase. Married couples ’swear off’ having children for many reasons. They may like their present lifestyle too much to want to exchange it for one of ‘hassles’. They may have considered their money could be put to use in better ways – like going on holidays every year; and having a more quality lifestyle for themselves. They may have preferred not to give up their time to child-rearing. Others may have been put off by the parental responsibilities that parenthood entails.
By: novice101 on August 31, 2008
at 9:42 am
I see…
Thank you, another lessons learned on wordpress today
http://snowwhitecinderella.wordpress.com/
By: snowwhitecinderella on September 1, 2008
at 9:02 pm