The Family as a Socioeconomic Management System

Masudul Alam Choudhury

doi:10.32890/ijms.18.1.2011.10202

Abstract

The family is a social miniscule in every culture. It is a central theme of gender-development issue. As such it has a distinct and abiding effect on the nature of the socioeconomic order in terms of preference formation relating to the kinds of artifacts that get exchanged and thus play a key role in socioeconomic development. The totality of these issues comprises the study of the family as a socioeconomic management system. The intergenerational interaction and co-evolution of the family in concert with the social complex is differently explainable in neoclassical economic and Islamic contexts. Consequently, the triangular circular interrelationships between the individual, the household and the socioeconomic order leave different effects in the above two paradigms. These in turn have profound influence on the future of socioeconomic development according to these paradigms. This paper formalizes an interrelationship between the inter-generational family and the socioeconomic order using the concept of circular causation of unity of knowledge in Islam and the methodological individualism in neoclassical economic theory. The inter temporal context of the theme is included with family extensions and their socioeconomic effects over populations of grandfathers and grandchildren. Keywords: Microeconomics of family, socioeconomic management system, inter-generational endogenous preferences, culture and political economy.

Highlights

Background and ObjectiveThe individual and the household are the formative springs of socioeconomic relations at large, in respect of genderdevelopment issues
Be of an interactive and co-evolutionary type. To study this formalism we will introduce a methodological framework of analysis, which we will refer to as the interactive, integrative and evolutionary (IIE) model of unity of knowledge in the systems context (Choudhury, 1995)
The formalism of this paper explains that the IIE-learning type preferences formed in the midst of the family and its consequential socioeconomic linkages have important circular causal meaning

Summary

Background and Objective

The individual and the household are the formative springs of socioeconomic relations at large, in respect of genderdevelopment issues Such issues when studied in the context of self and institutional linkages assume the texture within management science, that is, the interactive decision-making in the family as a great institution are studied in the light of attaining the goals of perceived meaning of altruistic wellbeing. The circular causal interrelationships between individuals, households and the socioeconomic order will be of an interactive and co-evolutionary type To study this formalism we will introduce a methodological framework of analysis, which we will refer to as the interactive, integrative and evolutionary (IIE) model of unity of knowledge in the systems context (Choudhury, 1995). The precept of divine oneness is interpreted here in terms of a systemic unity of knowledge (i.e. participation, complementarities and linkages) as established by the Qur’an (Choudhury, 1999)

A Socioeconomic Definition of Family

Conclusion