On the Interaction between the Quantity and Quality of Children

Abstract

Students of human fertility have been aware for a long time that there may be some special relation between the number (quantity) of children ever born to a family and the "quality" of their children as perceived by others if not by the parents. One need only cite the negative correlation between quantity and quality of children per family so often observed in both cross-section and time-series data. One of us (Becker 1960) more than a decade ago stressed the importance for understanding fertility (quantity) of the interaction between quantity and quality, and we are pleased to note that this interaction is emphasized in most of the papers in this Supplement, especially those by De Tray and Willis. Some economists have argued that the negative relation between quantity and quality often observed is a consequence of a low substitution elasticity in a family's utility function between parents' consumption or level of living and that of their children (see, e.g., Duesenberry 1960; Willis 1969). The approach followed by De Tray in this volume is different, but it makes equally special assumptions about the substitution between quantity and quality in the utility function and in household production.