Birth and Fortune: The Impact of Numbers on Personal Welfare / Edition 2

by Richard A. Easterlin

Overview

In this influential work, Richard A. Easterlin shows how the size of a generation—the number of persons born in a particular year—directly and indirectly affects the personal welfare of its members, the make-up and breakdown of the family, and the general well being of the economy.

"[Easterlin] has made clear, I think unambiguously, that the baby-boom generation is economically underprivileged merely because of its size. And in showing this, he demonstrates that population size can be as restrictive as a factor as sex, race, or class on equality of opportunity in the U.S."—Jeffrey Madrick, Business Week

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226180328
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	04/15/1987
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	235
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Richard A. Easterlin is professor of economics at the University of Southern California.

Table of Contents

Preface
I. The Argument
1. The Accident of Birth: Generation Size and Personal Welfare
2. The Economic Fortunes of Young Adults
II. Family
3. Marriage and Childbearing
4. Women's Work
5. Breakdown of the Family?
III. Society and Economy
6. Social Disorganization
7. Stagflation
IV. Implications
8. The Future
9. Conclusion
10. Epilogue
Appendix Tables
Notes
Index