America, the plannable: How banks affect family size

As of last year, nearly half of America’s middle-aged adults found themselves members, willing or not, of what’s been called “the sandwich generation,” so named because these people have a child below them and an aging parent above them. There are all sorts of theories about why families choose to bear as many (or as few) children as they do, but one suggestion is that parents tend to have more children so that there will be more people for them to rely on financially in their old age. Under this framework, children aren’t sources of joy and fulfillment, but rather “assets,” “instruments,” and goods to be “substituted out of.” In order to test this hypothesis, economists have over the years examined eras in which societies’ financial safety nets grew tauter—the idea being that if people were made to feel more financially secure, they’d feel less of a need to produce a bunch of children to rely on.

via Business News http://ift.tt/YcmVuE