The family, although recognized as fundamental from Adam Smith on, received little systematic treatment in economics before the 1950s. A significant exception was Thomas Malthus's model of population growth. The work of Gary Becker and others initiated contemporary research with the application and extension of microeconomic theory and empirical methods. Standard aspects include:

• fertility and the demand for children in developed and developing countries^[1][2]
• child health and mortality^[3]
• interrelation of 'quantity' and 'quality' of children through investment of time and other resources of parents
• altruism in the family, including the rotten kid theorem^[4]
• sexual division of labor through the household production function and outside the household.^[5][6]
• mate selection,^[7] search costs, marriage, divorce, and imperfect information^[8]
• family background and opportunities of children.
• intergenerational mobility and inequality, including the bequest motive^[9]

^[10][11]

• human capital, social security, and the rise and fall of families^[12][13][14]

See also

• Hypergamy

Notes

References

• Gary S. Becker (1981, Enlarged ed., 1991). A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-90698-5. Publisher's description & links to chapter previews.
• _____ (1987). "family," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 2, pp. 281-86.
• Yoram Ben-Porath (1982). "Economics and the Family-Match or Mismatch? a Review of Becker's A Treatise on the Family," Journal of Economic Literature, 20(1) (March), pp. 52-64.
• Theodore C. Bergstrom (1996). "Economics in a Family Way," Journal of Economic Literature, 34(4), pp. 1903-1934.
• Theodore C. Bergstrom and Mark Bagnoli (1993). "Courtship as a Waiting Game," Journal of Political Economy, 101(1), pp. 185-202.
• Richard A. Berk (1987). "household production," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 2, pp. 673-75
• John Ermisch (2008). "family economics," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract+ links to "Related Articles" Abstracts.
• Mark R. Rosenzweig and Oded Stark, ed. (1997). Handbook of Population and Family Economics. Table of conents, v. 1A & 1B, pp. 1422. Elsevier.
• Theodore W. Schultz, ed. (1974). Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, Chicago, University of Chicago Press