Assessing the net value of children
The U.S. birth rate is falling. One explanation: a diminishing return on investment.
By Ben Stein, contributor
Last Updated: September 1, 2009: 6:40 AM ET

(Fortune Magazine) -- What is the value of a child in modern Western industrial society? More specifically, what is the value of a middle-class or upper-middle-class or upper-class child in America? And does this have anything to do with the fact that the birth rate among American women has been falling for decades and that the age of first childbirth among educated women is far higher than among less-well-educated women?

Start with economics. People in a free society will choose to have more of something if its return exceeds its cost. On the other hand, people in a free society will choose to have less of a good or service if its value is less than its cost.

Now, what is a modern child? Obviously, not a good or service, but something more and also something less. Long ago, as we all know, humans had children because they liked having sex and because children had some value as assistant hunters and gatherers and keepers of the hearth.

Then, as society became more organized, families chose to have children because the parents (we assume) still liked having sex and the resulting children were helpful on the farm or the ranch or in the village smithy. The kids did not require much -- just food and shelter and occasional loving and cuffing about to keep them in line.

Now we can have sex without having children. That is a major factor in life, but by itself it does not explain why people do not necessarily want to have kids.

Maybe the reason is largely because raising modern children is such a major pain in the neck. For one thing, thanks to a variety of factors, often parents have to struggle like galley slaves to get their offspring into private schools and pay for them.

The private school parent also has to pony up for every kind of lesson -- ballet, horse, and music lessons, math tutoring, and chess club. The parent also has to drive the little ones to all of these events as well as to the "play dates" that lurk like unanesthetized colonoscopies in modern life. Then there is the most horrible event a healthy upper-middle-class American can have: social engagements with the parents of Junior's classmates.

In other words, we are talking about child rearing as part unpaid chauffeur, part torture.

Then there is college and a real course in horrors getting the darling in somewhere that won't embarrass you in front of your pals at the club. That's before paying for the school, which is a stunning slap in the face. Total college costs at a "prestige" school can easily touch $70,000 a year, real money for most people.

And after graduation day, what do you get for having the system holding you by your ankles and shaking all the money out of your pockets? You might have a son with a law degree who cannot get a job, a daughter with a film-school degree who works as a masseuse, or a musician who keeps you up all night with his drums.

You are very likely to have one who cannot spell "gratitude" and has a sense of entitlement that would make Marie Antoinette blush. How many of each kind have you observed with your own eyes? I might add that by pure luck, my wife and I do have a dutiful, helpful son and daughter-in-law. How this happened I am not quite sure.

But my son is an aberration, as far as I can tell. Look around you. The costs and benefits of having children in affluent America are wildly off kilter. Too much cost, too little reward. Often the cost-benefit analysis of children prints out "Get a German shorthaired pointer instead."

Many people are doing that, and the birth rate is collapsing. But if we stop having enough children, because their value is so low relative to their cost, the society grinds down. It's happening right now. The native-born upper middle class barely replace themselves in America, if they do at all. In a way we are committing ѕυιcιdє as a class, possibly in part because of the burdens of child rearing in modern life.

What is the net present value of a child in modern America? Often, it's difficult to find much, and thereby hangs a question mark over our future as a nation, at least as we have known it.

Ben Stein is an actor, lawyer, writer, and economist who also appears in commercials as a spokesman for various companies.

Some comments from the story:


Sasha Semah10:07 am
Your view of having children is so cynical. It horrifies me to read this; you look at kids like you look at menupages
1 kid $
2 kids $$
3 kids $$$

There is more to life than assessing the net value of a person, and clearly you are talking about your viewpoint and not the average parent.
Message
Rock Jocelyn12:00 am
Dear Ben Stein- Maybe the issue is that educated women have their own lives and don't want to waste their degrees cleaning up after 15 babies. Also, you're insane and evolution is real. FYI.
Message
Aaron SwarvarSep 2
Those that are appalled or were appalled read through this article again. He isn't saying NOT to have kids or that kids are horrible, what he is pointing out is the fact that middle class and higher families are not having children or as many children at least and gives reasons why not. Yes, he uses a lot of satire, but the point he is making is that kids are expensive, are a physical and mental drain, and for many people that cost does not exceed the benefit; benefits that no longer exist actually. That only leaves the question "what is/are the benefits of children?" left unanswered by the author...
Message
Maureen StillmanSep 1
After reading a few sentences of this article I knew it was written by a man or by someone with no children. A woman would never write this -- satire or not. As for the sentence about how he can't figure out how his own children turned out well, he and his wife should take some credit. There are no guarantees of course, but good parenting counts.

I think the cost of daycare is really a limiting factor for family size for many families. You can send one or 2 kids to afterschool/daycare but go higher than 2 and someone has to stay home OR the couple (or single parent) has to make a really big (combined) salary.

I adopted a baby from China in 2001 and I would have gone back for a second if it hadn't been for the high cost of daycare. I just couldn't afford it.

As for college, that is the real financial kicker. My love of children caused me to just go ahead. Value = high, no question here.

Play dates can be fun! You need to loosen up :-).
Message
Bill CareySep 1
I don't think it is satire. I do think the author forgets that our children are our only attachment to immortality.
Message
Facebook UserSep 1
The Parents CHOOSE to make their children as expensive as they want them to be. No one is forcing them to sign them up for " ballet, horse, and music lessons, math tutoring, and chess club". Buy them a baseball glove and ball, or a bike, and tell them to go have fun. As for college,if they don't take the student loans out, they will never appreciate the value of education (and might look into a lower cost university)-----and take care of your own retirement first----your kids would rather pay back the federally subsidized loans than have to take care of your pampered arse in retirement.
 
Ronald L FlemingSep 1
You failed to mention..
1 Child support. As it sits now, it is more profitable for a woman to have a kid and tell the dad to LEAVE, and that does happen on a regular basis, matter not the race. Yes CS is a necissity, but we are all getting older wiser.. It is highly expensive.. Men are choosing to just be dads to other womens kids, versus have a normal typical family.
2. GEN y's and the Technical gens.. The inherited cost is rediculous.. Why have 4-5 kids, like our grandparents did.. 2.. and IM DONE, most friends i know in the technical field, 1 MAYBE 2.. Yet the Divorce/CS bug hits .. and they are done.
3.. Our society doesnt have a reliance on farms/hunting.. So the need for Children is not there.. With our world being centered on technology, and $600 cell phones.. WHO can afford children, lol
Message
Vince Levent OrmanSep 1
The only remaining benefit to having children is an emotional one. Unfortunately, that is also undermined by outsourcing the raising of children to professionals, leaving children less emotionally connected to their parents, and more to their friends, music and movie stars, and television personalities. That increases the parents' emotional dependence on their children, and leads to constant conflict while the growing children struggle to assert their independence and adulthood, while parents try to keep them as dependent children well into their late teens and even early twenties.
Message
Vince Levent OrmanSep 1
This is wonderful. A classic satire while discussing a serious issue. Thank you Ben Stein.

There are two serious issues with modern child rearing: one is the rising cost, the other is the falling benefit. Cost has been rising because of a mobile society reducing the size of the family. Nuclear family is a modern concept and simply is not designed for child rearing. Two adults rearing children without the support of an extended family or, earlier, a clan or a tribe is simply not feasible without major professional and financial sacrifices. Then, you end up relying on institutions to raise your child like schools, day care centers, and babysitters which are costly and not very efficient either.

The benefit has been falling drastically also. The modern organized society made children unnecessary for the financial well being of the family. Professional careers, health and disability insurance, old age homes, and retirement plans all undermine the need for children.
Message
Alicia MillerSep 1
I hope this really is satire. It would make me very sad if the author actually thought this was a good argument.

Michael CarrSep 1
So don't slave to get your kids into a top private school. Most of us made by just fine with a public school education. Same goes for a $70,000/year college or any other other competitive upper class pursuits that suck people in. There are plenty of people raising 2-4 kids in this country who are neither rich nor deprived. They get their pleasure from their family, not from status.

 :idea: I thought it was kind of funny, he managed to nail the trophy kid's lifestyles pretty well.  He is just letting it all hang out, how it is with people who have a trophy kid or two.

I have observed the same spirit of competetivness(I am not sure it's the word I mean) among Catholics many times over, but done in a different fashion.  I guess everyone desires for their life to mean something special, for their children to reflect well upon them.

Although I believe children from large Catholic families end up having a huge amount more of gratitude than the trophy kids, and other good stuff besides.