Ingrid reviews Nancy Folbre’s book, Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family (The Family and Public Policy)
A child with two parents present enjoys on average 32 hours a week of
active parental care (with either or both of the parents present)
whereas for children of single parents this number is 23 hours.
Children spend much less time alone with their fathers than with their
mother: in two-parent households children aged 0 to 2 spend 19.5 hours
with their mother alone, and 7.9 hours with their father alone – and
this parental gap remains significant when they get older (e.g. 11.4
versus 4.3 hours when they are aged 9-11)…
… the annual cost of parental family care in a two-parent two-child
household would annually amount to $13,352; in a one-parent family
$11,024. (p. 129). If we add to these the direct monetary expenditures,
then the total parental expenditures annually average $23,243 in two
parent households, and $17,125 in one-parent households. The time cost
of parenting takes about 60 to 65% of this total cost.Having analysed what parents spend on their children, Folbre moves on
to investigate what the government spends on children. She shows that
in the US federal policy provides better protection for the old than
for the young and that there are great inequalities in access to health
care and education. Folbre also lays out the different US public
policies that affect parenting and children; for a non-American
audience this is a very useful overview for those wanting to start
getting a grip on the different types of American family-related
policies.
Apt. 11d 
This is like my life in statistics. Or, as I think when I’m in the grocery store “I’m subsidizing your retirement to a far greater extent than my own retirement is likely to be subsidized. So, get out of the self-scan line until you learn how to use it, especially if you aren’t going to read the sign that says ’12 items or less’. I need to get home and see the baby so my wife have some rest.”
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See, now I thought this post was going to be about replacing computer parts that had been magic markered.
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And how does one quantify other things that the kids have stolen from me: lazy Saturday afternoons, youthful good looks, and a firm grip on reality?
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Well, I’m not sure we want parenting to be a money-making endeavor. But this sort of thing does really p*ss me off.
I know it’s essentially about kids not voting, whereas senior citizens do. But still.
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It will only get worse, as more baby boomers retire, and the pension systems fail. Will the adult voters, en masse, decide to sacrifice to provide for the next generation? Not likely. I expect the next 10 to 20 years will see massive dis-investment in schools and public services.
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I feel our kids are pretty well supported. The County is spending tens of thousands on educating them, well over what we are paying in property taxes. My employer’s share of my family health insurance package is as great as the marginal cost would be if I added them on to a privately-bought package. We will have access to the Virginia state university system, which is really very good and cheap – high level of tax subsidy. Maybe I should read the book to be convinced that I should be grumpy?
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Dave — I think the says the stat is true for US *federal* policy. You’re citing to local services.
But, I can’t disagree with you that accounting for the numbers from only one pool of money (federal) doesn’t give a fair assessment of the support provided by society to different segments of the population.
My kids don’t use public education, so we’re not getting a slice of the pie there. We do have family health insurance, but I’m pretty sure that the amount spent on my children from the insurance is much lower than the care offered the elderly, even if they fewer insurees.
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