Having a child is nothing like deciding to buy a Porsche
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Version 0 of 1. Republican outrage over the inclusion of mandatory maternity coverage in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continues. Greg Mankiw, professor and chairman of the economics department at Harvard University, and former chair of George W Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, wrote on his blog Random Observations for Students of Economics: People who drive a new Porsche pay more for car insurance than those who drive an old Chevy. We consider that fair because which car you drive is a choice. Why isn't having children viewed in the same way? His use of this analogy reveals the simplistic mindset behind the "free market" criticism of ACA's maternity care mandate. First, while Mankiw concedes that the "goal is to spread the risk of childbirth among the larger community", he conveniently fails to note that the maternity coverage mandate serves to eliminate price disparities between the insurance premiums for men and women prevalent before ACA. From a policy perspective, even if an individual woman can choose whether or not to have a baby, the prior system placed the costs for childbearing exclusively on women. Had he thought about the mandate from that angle, he might have considered whether the role of child-bearer in the family (and for society) represents much more than just a personal consumption choice, and if a policy of treating reproduction as mere choice facilitates gender discrimination. Second, while random observations that equate children with Porsches may please wealthy sports-car owners, many readers will be uncomfortable with the analogy. It conveys a shocking misunderstanding of the value of children and childrearing. Cars are not equivalent to children. Children are human beings, a fact that distinguishes the choice to have a child from the whims of the auto enthusiast. Further, having and caring for dependent children are society-preserving tasks, essential to the future of society and all of its institutions. Children provide a social good as well as satisfying individual preference – a social good quantitatively and qualitatively different from that provided in the production and consumption of cars. But, putting aside these vital points, let's analyze Mankiw's analogy on his own terms: is it unfair to treat a choice to have a child differently from any other consumer decision, specifically the preference for a Porsche? In Mankiw's view, society should either not subsidize either choice, or should subsidize both. Republicans have made their preference on this type of policy question very clear: if you can afford a Porsche or to have a child, fine, but don't expect the rest of us to chip in. In considering the justness of this analogy, we might first ask whether parents should only be viewed as consumers of children. For the sake of an accurate analogy they should also be thought of as producers of children. There should be two comparisons: between producers of children and producers of Porsches, as well as between their consumers. Consideration of production raises complexity. In this process of production, the creators of cars and creators of children could both benefit from state subsidy. The production costs for the producers of Porsches and other consumer goods are subsidized – heavily, through regulatory measures such as tariff and tax policy and lax labor laws disfavoring unions. It's also done directly through incentives such as when communities bid for location of plants or lawmakers slash taxes and make infrastructure investments facilitating distribution of goods, or provide other services designed to entice businesses interested in lower production costs and higher corporate profits. Certainly some of these manufacturing benefits go to the car buyer with a Porsche preference. The cost of the Porsche is likely to be lower as a result of such subsidy. But the major benefits of such state subsidies accrue to the producer of Porsches, delivered through the mechanism of transfer of public funds to facilitate private gain. Of course, society also subsidizes child production, but in doing so relies primarily on the concepts of the "private family" and "individual responsibility" in which public provision of benefits is not considered investment, but stigmatized as connoting dependency. Even public provision of education is under attack by fiscal conservatives and those who would privatize anything that could be turned into individual profit. The business of child rearing simply does not evoke the largesse afforded to the business of car (or many other forms of) manufacturing, and what subsidies currently exist are subject to constant scrutiny and cost-cutting measures. If we recognize the fairness of subsidizing children as well as Porches we should also recognize the Porsche is not complete when it is designed or its requisite parts are obtained, but rather when it is launched into the showroom, ready for purchase and fit for the road. Similarly, the "production" of a child is not complete until decades after birth, when he or she becomes a self-sufficient adult. That comparison supports an argument for shared responsibility for children that takes us well beyond mere maternity benefits, into the argument for social welfare policies benefiting child producers or caretakers and the children they "produce". It makes it mandatory that society, including the market, share the costs and burdens associated with not only bearing, but also caring for the next generation. What about the consumption part of the analogy? Who are the consumers of children? Certainly not only parents. The state and the market are major consumers of the products of reproduction and caretaking labor. Parental reproduction also reproduces society, providing the taxpayers, consumers, workers, and employers who will populate our future. As things stand in the US, these beneficiaries are not required to share the costs of production, nor do they voluntarily pay a fair price for what they ultimately receive. Why should reproduction that is essential to society be cast as merely a private choice and therefore solely a personal responsibility? One could analogize a different comparison between consumers of Porsches and consumers of the next generation. Reaping the benefits, but not sharing in the costs of the reproduction of society is the equivalent of the state and market institutions stealing lovingly created and skillfully constructed Porsches. At a minimum, the term "freeloaders" seems applicable here. Mankiw's simplistic resort to analogy to address serious and complex social issues obscures the substantially unfair ways parents and children are treated in our society. A cavalier "let them drive Porsches" response to the needs of parents trying to raise children in a country with growing poverty, increasing food insecurity, failing public schools, diminished opportunity and access should make us angry. Children deserve our investment in terms of both money and effort. This is an obligation we collectively owe, not only to our own children, but to all children. The growth in inequality that has resulted from our losing sight of this fundamental principle of social justice profoundly undermines the future possibilities for our nation's children and, therefore, the future of the nation itself. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |