Helicopter parenting

Economics is a social science that aims to understand how people make decisions, and the decisions we make as parents are among the most important we face, as economics can help us understand how many children people have, how much they invest in their upbringing and what parenting style they chose. Raising children takes place in home and parenting is above all about love and affection. The emphasis on education and career success is an element of middle-class values,  and in today’s economy, which runs on human capital, middle class values have become culturally dominant.

If the children are the future, governments need to implement policies to help women participate in the economy but also invest in young children and reduce inequalities.

 

The rise of the helicopter parents can be understood as a rational response of parents to a change economic environment. In Love, Money and Parenting two economists mix personal anecdote drawn from their personal metropolitan familial lives. They reveal in those countries with low inequality, such as Sweden, parents tend to be more permissive and in countries with high inequality, parents are both more authoritarian and more prone to instil in their children a drive to achieve ambitious goals. In the US, where parents who feat that their offspring will be left behind end up landing their kids with busier schedules than top business executives. The rise of helicopter parents to a changed economic environment. The parenting choice of the rich differ systematically from those of the poor, the authors write.

Psychologists have long noted that authoritarian parenting is more prevalent in families with low income.

Social economic discrimination in labour markets will result in parents having weakest incentives to invest in their daughter’s human capital, since the ROI to such investment is low.

 

Love Money and Parenting: How Economic Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids by Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zillbotti Princeton $39.95 / £24, 384 pages.