Bargaining, Altruism, and Demographic Phenomena

Bibliographic Data

ID4122762
AuthorsOded Stark (0000-0001-5972-9726, corresponding author)
Year1984
Volume10
Issue4
Pages679
Publication date1984-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePopulation and Development Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0098-7921 • E-ISSN: 1728-4457
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1973287
OpenAlexW1977343389
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited1

This paper views family members as altruistic bargainers who negotiate with each other and in so doing are motivated by the assumption that a joint action dominates a unilateral action. Bargaining refers to a process whereby rational agents communicate with each other make promises transmit threats--negotiate to advance their interests. A great many demographic phenomena cannot be fully understood or accounted for without considering intrafamilial bargaining and altruism. Children are needed to fulfill 2 distinct roles: to directly furnish their parents with desired services and by eroding one anothers bargaining positions to ensure that such services are supplied at an affordable cost. To the extent that divorce necessitates the wifes entry or reentry into the labor market such highly marriage specific activities as childbearing and rearing are costlier. As a result expanded market opportunities for women alter the intramarriage power relations in their favor; given the prospect of divorce bearing and rearing children tend to erode womens bargaining power and therefore reduce fertility. A young woman is more likely to incur a divorce than an older woman because her total accumulated human capital is smaller. The relationship between the modal rural to urban migrating unit in the developing world--a young single family member and the rest of his family--can be modeled as a cooperative contractual arrangement. It is the familys strength that positively influences the magnitude of migrant to family remittances. Overall to properly explain hypothesize on and predict demographic phenomena some explicit accounting for bargaining and altruism is appropriate

Altruism (biology) · Demographic economics · Economics · Labour economics · Microeconomics · Economic Growth and Productivity · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · Psychology · Social Psychology

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