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Matthias Doepke, Ph.D.
HSBC Research Professor in Economics, Northwestern University
Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids
Parents everywhere want their children to be happy and do well. Yet how parents seek to achieve this ambition varies enormously. For instance, American and Chinese parents are increasingly authoritative and authoritarian, whereas Scandinavian parents tend to be more permissive. Why? Love, Money & Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids investigates how economic forces and growing inequality shape how parents raise their children. From medieval times to the present, and from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden to China and Japan, co-authors Matthias Doepke, Ph.D. and Fabrizio Zilibotti, Ph.D. look at how economic incentives and constraints—such as money, knowledge, and time—influence parenting practices and what is considered good parenting in different countries.
Through personal anecdotes and original research, Profs. Doepke and Zilibotti show that in countries with increasing economic inequality, such as the United States, parents push harder to ensure their children have a path to security and success. Economics has transformed the hands-off parenting of the 1960s and ’70s into a frantic, overscheduled activity. Growing inequality has also resulted in an increasing “parenting gap” between richer and poorer families, raising the disturbing prospect of diminished social mobility and fewer opportunities for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. In nations with less economic inequality, such as Sweden, the stakes are less high, and social mobility is not under threat.
Event Sponsors
- Compass Health Center
- Fusion Academy
- Haven Youth and Family Services
- Kenilworth D38
- New Trier Parents’ Association
- North Shore Country Day
- Roycemore School
- Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy
- Science & Arts Academy
- The Family Institute at Northwestern University
- The House Tutoring Lounge
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