Alternative rationalities, or why do economists become parents?

This paper argues that caring for children has significant effects on economic processes, both through the time spent on it by parents and the contribution it makes to the reproduction of the economy. However, conventional economic models based on rational choice are inappropriate for analysing parental motivations and behaviour. This paper examines five types of rational choice model of parenting behaviour that successively relax some of the individualist assumptions of the conventional neoclassical decision-making model. All these models, however, are methodologically individualist in that preferences internal to the individual are applied to an external world and the process of decision making is carried on independently of society. The models vary in the extent to which individualism informs the structure and development of preferences themselves. The final model rejects rational choice as an explanation for all behaviour. Instead of looking at caring behaviour as a choice made in order best to satisfy preferences, it looks at it as the fulfilment of responsibilities that individuals feel are theirs because of their identification as members of a group subject to particular social norms. This model is therefore not individualist even in the weakest sense of the term because it looks at the process of decision making, as is itself being subject to social forces. The paper concludes by considering what such an explanation can bring to the analysis of changes in the care of children in the context of changing gender identities.