In an article over at VoxEU, economists Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti advance the theory that parenting style is a rational strategy that parents adopt in response to incentives. When the stakes are high, parents will push their children more and monitor their choices more strictly. However, if children are likely to turn out basically fine, parents will decide that helicopter parenting isn't worth the costs and take a more permissive stance.
The authors go on to relate their theory to income inequality:
The return to pushing children hard consists of the increased likelihood that they will do well later in life. How important this is to parents depends crucially on the degree of economic inequality, and in particular on the return to education. In an economy where education and effort are highly rewarded and where people with little education struggle, parents will be highly motivated to push their children hard.They support their theory with data on parenting attitudes in different countries and the level of income inequality. Sure enough, the findings are that more unequal societies have parents who stress hard work, while egalitarian countries' parents focus on imagination and independence.
What do you think of the authors' theory, the notion of parenting as a rational activity? Is there a confounding factor influencing the correlation between parenting styles and inequality? Could causation actually be going the other way?
Hat tip: Marginal Revolution
This isn't surprising to me at all, and the data to prove it backs up his argument. Even from my perspective from being abroad for 6 months, I definitely found that more egalitarian countries' parents were not as stressful as parents are at work in the US. I think this happens because as the income gap gets larger, education becomes more and more needed to reach levels of income that the average person desires. In countries like the US where it is so difficult to get anything without an education, education is obviously so heavily rewarded. I think our type of society is actually more stressful and so much less desirable than something like a European society where education is still rewarded, it is more equal, but it's simply just not as stressful. I've never seen evidential proof that this article provides; I just think it is so accurate and speaks so highly to the fact that we need to reduce inequality by doing something (no one will agree on what to do to reduce it though)! I think rewarding education is great, but why be SO stressed in the process when we could have a somewhat more equal society, still rewarding, but less stressful?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Cameron in that as the magnitude of the educational reward increases, so does the stress for both the parents and the parented. This surely stems from our desire to continuously increase our economic productivity at any cost, including raising the bar for personal productivity. I wonder, then, if reducing the educational 'reward' will have a negative effect on our efficiency/productivity, but a positive effect on stress levels within society and 'helicopter' parenting styles. I would say that it depends on personal preference what type of lifestyle we want our families to lead, however in the midst of increasing inequality there are more rewards and punishments to consider for each way of life, and thus finding a balance can be more costly.
ReplyDelete