One the changes that capitalist development wrought in [the 19th-century] family was that it created economic opportunities for children outside of the family farm. And that increased the bargaining power of children. It meant that they could leave home at an earlier age . . . and go off and explore their own opportunities.
Nancy Folbre is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and director of the Political Economy Research Institute's Program on Gender and Care Work.
She was elected president of the International Association for Feminist Economics in 2002, has been an associate editor of the journal Feminist Economics since 1995, and is also an editorial assistant of the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy.
Her books include Greed, Lust, and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas; For Love and Money: Care Provision in the U.S.; The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values; and Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family.
