The interaction between quantity and quality of children in the household production function: A simultaneous model

The major objective of this study was to investigate whether there is a trade-off between quantity and quality of children. A second objective was to determine how family characteristics affect quantity and quality of children.;Data were taken from the 1986 Consumer Expenditures Survey. The sample consisted of 615 urban, nuclear families. A simultaneous system model with two equations was used for the analysis of the interaction between quantity and quality of children. Independent variables were family income, father's education, mother's education, father's participation in the labor market, mother's participation in the labor market, mother's age, and mother's race. Two methods of measurement were introduced to calculate per child expenditures as a proxy for child quality. Method 1 included expenditures strictly specified for children, and Method 2 included both child-specified expenditures and child's share of overall household expenditures.;Empirical results of the two methods indicated the existence of a trade-off between quantity and quality of children. These results suggest that a family with more children would have lower quality per child than a family with fewer children, and the opportunity to have higher quality children would increase with fewer children per family. Also, the more highly educated both parents and the higher family income the more likely a family would have higher quality children. In addition, the more hours the mother works in the labor market the fewer would be the number of children in the family.;The negative relationship between mother's participation in the labor market and quantity of children implies the need for time allocation within employed-mother families toward a household strategy that offsets the loss of mother's household work. The findings on the direct effect of parents' education and their income on quality of children, however, confirm the need for better educated parents with family income enough to ensure good quality children and ultimately better families.