Free Market Babies: A Simplistic Analysis

Great Debates
21

The point of our Child Support system is to remove the gambling aspect, and attempt to ensure that the child has enough financial support. Your plan does nothing to eliminate the gamble, it just puts some money into the eventual mother’s pocket. It also puts money into the pockets of women who will not have child support issues, due to being married* when they get pregnant.

Even if the total amount of money is enough to cover child care for the children in need, WAY too much of it will go to women who will never need it. The children in need will almost always not have enough financial support. Increasing the dollar amount would eventually generate enough money to cover most of these children, but the amount wasted will go up just as much.

*While marriage is a contract, I don’t think that your going to get husbands to simply pay the normal fee, then not contribute to the actual financial support of the child.

22

Well statistics show it does this poorly.

To reduce costs, it is in the man’s interest to contract for this. So it does accomplish it.

:confused: A woman can charge what she feels is appropriate. If she feels it is not appropriate to charge because marriage laws cover eventualities, or she trusts the man/husband/boyfriend, then it is up to her, same as always.

This is an interesting issue, but I am still unclear as to the extent of your criticism. I will ask again: does the amount therefore need to be higher? Do you see a way that women can resolve this issue on their own? Or is it just criticism without the constructive part?

Perhaps you misunderstand the point of the analysis. It is not to set a fee by law. It is to begin to approximate the actual risks of sexual activity.

23

For the man. The point of child support isn’t to protect the man, it’s to protect the child. Your plan does not protect the child.

It’s a fundamental problem with the flow of cash, I don’t believe any minor changes will fix it.

Take an average sexually active woman. I do not believe that any affordable fee would result in this woman bringing in enough money to cover the costs of having a child. On the other hand, the large numbers of women who are fortunate enough to be on the “no pregnancy” side of the equation get paid a large sum of money they have no need for.

To put it another way, this money is paid to cover the cost of having a child, but most of it goes to women who don’t have children, and the money that does go to women who have children, isn’t nearly enough.

24

So, best to just not charge anything and forget the costs? One of us doesn’t understand what the other is saying; or, one of us doesn’t understand why the other is saying what he is saying. I’m just not sure where we are here. Each time I think I see why you don’t like my cost analysis, it is in interpreting it as a realistic plan.

Very well; it is not a realistic plan. What can be done to fix it? So far, your answer has been “nothing, it is worse than what we have now,” but I cannot see how it is because all your criticism so far has only convinced me that sex is far more expensive than I’ve proposed, but I’ve not heard how I might compare this to your estimations, nor have I heard how what we do now somehow rectifies the situation, nor yet how I would even judge the merits of a plan. It seems implicitly assumed by you and BrightNShiny that a “good” plan would consist of caring about the child, not the man and not the woman, that might come from sex. Great! So… how do we do this?

Is there any reason to suppose a market force might be able to account for this? BrightNShiny suggests it is an externality problem because children bear costs for decisions in which they received no benefit. I’m still thinking on this, because I’m not sure exactly how to measure benefits or costs for people who might not exist. (Is non-existence a cost or a benefit?) I suspect strongly that it isn’t a true externality problem, but I cannot make a solid argument yet. It’s like the generic “future generations” argument of them cleaning up our messes, about which I am really quite unsure.

The point of my plan isn’t to protect the man, it is to help protect the woman who will bear the costs of raising the child. To the extent my “plan” helps men is not clear. Facilitating a situation where men will willingly contract to cover the cost of child care is not something I would immediately think protects men. Even on consideration of your post, I still don’t think it. What do you mean?

25

The scenario you’re proposing, at least how I’m perceiving it, is that the man is only responsible for paying the agreed to fee. There is no child support law, no wage garnishment, he pays the fee and he’s “off the hook”. There’s no way those fees add up to the cost of caring for a child.

States routinely garnish up to 25-30% of a father’s take home pay, for 18 years… who is going to pay that kind of money to get sex?

Your scenario protects men who father children out of wedlock, in that they pay a fee for sex that doesn’t remotely add up to what they would have paid under today’s laws.

You can raise the fee as high as you want, but all you’ll accomplish is abstinence, which is free anyway.

26

The prices I quoted in the OP assumed that the man contracts to cover half the cost of rearing a child (under the mother’s assumptions) and that he is about 60.5% likely to be able to carry through on that promise. Wikipedia notes that under our current system, only about half of women get all the child support they’re “due,” so this is quite charitable; as well, child support is based off a man’s ability to pay, not off what is necessary for the child. My plan, such as it is, accounts for putting the man on the hook more, if he wishes to keep costs down. You are correct that he is under no obligation to do so. Of course, the woman is under no obligation to have sex.

Of course, because there’s no way a single sex act guarantees the production of a child. This is precisely the problem with reality. I’ve not pretended I can make this effect vanish, being a fact of nature. I can only attempt to show what sex should roughly cost under some simplifying assumptions. Perhaps you would rather take a tactic of assuming binomial trials where the woman estimates the number of times she expects to have sex in her life and prices an act based on getting pregnant one or more times. This is an interesting alternative I might investigate, actually. It would certainly raise the price; but the man might strenuously object that he’s only having sex this one time, it is not fair to charge him for the totality of her behavior. Still… it’s interesting.

No one. They will sign a contract promising to pay. Are they trustworthy? Not universally. But we can attempt to account for that, too.

Frankly I don’t know why you think so. They would almost certainly be on the hook for more, up front.

This is very doubtful. What it will accomplish is women who bear all the risks by waiving the demand for compensation of those risks. This is why I suggested to BrightNShiny that my calculation is actually fairly sound, being so low.

27

If it looks like charging for sex, and it walks like charging for sex, and it quacks like charging for sex, then it is charging for sex. That’s how I see it and I imagine that’s how most other people see it. I don’t see any significance in refering to it as “insurance”; even if I did, the point might well be lost on a typical horny male.

Yes, it would. Assigning monetary values to non-monetary benefits and costs is obviously silly. (I’m aware that some people do it all the time, but that doesn’t make it any less silly.) Such a thing could only be justified if humans ranked all costs and benefits on a numerical scale. (And to state the obvious, we don’t do that.)

28

The assumptions in the OP as so asinine as to make me suspect that the spirit of madness which infects my conquer-the-world posts is flying free in the world and has infected others. It’s like designing a faster-than-light engine by saying, “Okay, let’s assume that dilithium crystals exist and are plentiful on Beta Centauri III.”

29

I prefer the explanation given by Dan Ariely in Predictably Irrational to the one in Freakonomics. Ariely says that people have separate sets of rules for acceptables behavior in the realm of nomral interactions vs. the realm of interactions that involve money. Move an interaction into the financial realm, and people suddenly assume that they can behave however they wish, as long as they pay the price that’s asked for.

The point being, a scheme like the one proposed in this thread would lead to more bad behavior from men, not less. Calling it insurance doesn’t change the issue.

30

I’m now confused. My understanding is that the man contracts with the woman in advance of having sex, to pay a fee equal to (roughly) half of the expected cost of the sex act. That cost is the cost of raising a child weighted by the chance of the sex act producing a child.

Can you tell me if I’ve gotten the gist correct?

31

You have not understood, but this is almost certainly the fault of my presenation, so I thank you for your patience and request for clarification.

The woman asks that the man cover the woman’s expected cost (compensate her for her risk) in order to keep him completely off the hook; however, in an attempt to drive this cost down, he contracts to cover half the cost of raising a child (based on her estimates expressed as a fraction of post-baby income) in the event of a pregnancy, and she discounts this based on the likelihood of him following through on this promise, and he demands a discount based on his perception that she will cheat[sup]*[/sup] and have an abortion or miscarriage or give the child up for adoption.

The story runs thus:

Woman: I bear a risk of losing a lot here. I demand compensation for my risk. (runs initial figures based on change of income, condom use, and chance of pregnancy)
Man: I demand a discount for you being on the pill, if you really wish to avoid pregnancy. Furthermore, this cost is too high; I will contract to cover half the costs of raising a child in the event of pregnancy.
Woman: but you are only likely to pay up X% of the time, so I can’t give you a full discount.
Man: but there is also a possibility that you will miscarry, have an abortion, or give the child up for adoption, so I refuse to accept that you’re really bearing all this risk.

Clearer?

  • [sup][sub]The verb “to cheat” here is used somewhat loosely; a woman cannot force a miscarraige by just willing it, though she may attempt to induce one through other means.[/sub][/sup]
32

You know what’s weird about your assumptions?

The assumption that the mother of a child should be the one to pay 100% of the costs of the child until that child is 18 years old.

I know you can start with any assumptions you like, but why in the world would you start with this assumption?

How about his assumption: Each parent of a child shoudl pay 50% of the costs of the child until that child is 18 years old. If the parents can find another party willing to assume the costs of the child, they can transfer guardianship of the child to that party and walk away scot free.

What’s wrong with that?

33

I am not making a moral pronouncement, if that is what your use of “should” implies.

Because women do bear all the costs in a “state of nature,” so to speak.

Great. Run with it and tell me how much sex costs.

Nothing.

34

So far you’re looking at the child as a total negative: so much in lost wages, so much in expenses. Children are not entirely downsides, of course, so separate the pregnancy costs from the costs/benefits of having the child in your life.

So before having sex, the couple sign an agreement that both will be responsible for half of whatever uncompensated costs the women incurs due to pregnancy through delivery. No money changes hands at all at this point, hopefully removing the ‘prostitution’ taint. If no pregnancy happens, fine and dandy. (Okay she pays for her pills, he pays for his condoms, so the sex isn’t totally ‘free.’)

If a pregnancy happens then both will have to shell out money.

If she has an uncomplicated pregnancy with good health insurance each might end up paying half the copay & deductible on her health care plus half of some time lost from work for doctors visits and, say, up to two weeks off to recover from giving birth.

If she has one of those pregnancies where she ends up flat on her back for four months, well, the cost goes way up.

This is something for the guy to consider before the sex. He can question girl closely on her contraceptive practices, her general health, whatever, and decide for himself whether he wants the sex enough to risk the financial blow if pregnancy results.
Then we turn to the baby.

Either parent can CHOOSE to adopt the child, formally accepting the complete responsibility for covering its expenses.

If both parents want the child in their life, well, they can adopt jointly and work out child support and custody and visitation just as if they were a divorcing couple with a child.

Or they could marry and adopt as a couple.

And if neither of them wants to take responsibility for the child, then it can be offered for adoption. There are lots of people who are dying for the chance of adopting a baby.

How’s that for a ‘solution’?

35

I disagree. We are human beings, not bears or badgers or squirrels. Our natural state is to live in a social group. Human females since the evolution of Homo sapiens sapiens have not been expected to raise their children entirely on their own. Human babies since the dawn of time have also recieved care from their grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, cousins, older siblings, and yes, their fathers.

It certainly is true that in hunter-gatherer days if a woman had sex with a random stranger and never saw him again, if she got pregnant she’d have no chance of getting help from the father to raise the child. But unless she was a hermit she’d have the help of her family to raise the child, either that or the child would be exposed.

36

Great. But I don’t know how to analyze cost in that scenario. Please, by all means, improve. I’d be fascinated to see how you account for the cost. This is not me being an asshole: I’m genuinely interested to see how you could improve on my calculation of cost by spreading the cost around. It seems to me that a cost is a cost, no matter who bears it, so for the purposes of pricing sex it doesn’t matter, but I am not wedded to my assumptions. Run with it.

Right you are.

37

Quite right. I agree 100%. How do you suppose I can include this in my calculation?

Even if no money changes hands and condoms and the pill fall like mana from heaven, sex still isn’t free. That’s the point of my calculation!

Quite so.

And what about lost earnings? Or does this somehow not really count as a cost?

He can, sure, but it seems to me by inspection that the incentives for this aren’t quite right.

Well we could consider this point, and I considered it, but I was not aware for how to figure the costs in this scenario.

It sounds exactly like mine, only I actually put figures to it.

38

Really? I thought there were two big differences:

  1. In your plan, the man pays the woman whatever fee they settle on for sex up front. In my plan, he only helps cover pregnancy costs if a pregnancy results. No pregnancy, no cost.

In your plan, an ‘unlucky’ woman who got pregnant quickly gets only the relatively trivial amount based on the ‘odds’ of her getting pregnant which might leave her severely out of pocket. Under my plan, every woman gets the same 50% of the pregnancy costs reimbursed regardless of how many other ‘non-reproductive’ sexual encounters she has.

It also avoid the problem someone else pointed out that much of the ‘insurance money’ paid out would go to women who never got pregnant.

Under my plan, a woman who never got pregnant never gets anything and a woman who does gets the full half-of-costs reimbursement.

Seems fairer to me.

  1. It sounded to me like under your plan the assumption was that Mother would always have ‘possession’ of the child, and the question was how to help her cover the costs of raising it.

The common complaint with men ‘forced’ into supporting a, well, casually conceived child is that women have all the control: the woman can choose to have an abortion, and if they decide to have the child then the man is on the hook.

Under my plan (not completely serious, of course) both partners have equally free choices on whether to be responsible for the child. Either or both can choose to adopt and pay and reap the benefits of having a child, or both can walk away and the child is adopted by someone who DOES want a child enough to raise it.

(I’m not blind to the fact you’d inevitably end up with some support from the government – perhaps there would be grants for would-be adoptive parents who don’t make much money – but that is sort of the equivalent of our current support plans. It just wouldn’t default automatically to Mother Gets Baby and Father Gets Bill.)

39

Then I can say without question: your plan is worse at covering the cost of pregnancy, as women are bearing risk whether or not they become pregnant, including the risk that a man who promised to pay won’t or can’t.

Not if the man contracts to cover half the cost of raising the child. See my discussion with Cheesesteak, please, there is no point in rehashing it.

Not too much. By my calculations, exactly the right amount. Do you pay your insurance company “too much” or do you suppose insurance companies should make no profit and exactly take in what they pay out out of the goodness of their hearts, bearing risk for fun?

But I repeat myself.

Inasmuch as my plan is an actual plan I’m proposing (which isn’t much) it doesn’t seem fairer to me at all, it seems set up much like our existing society where women bear considerably more costs than men in the case of unwanted pregnancy. This is a fact of biology, there’s no way to fix the problem, but we can, in the interest of having the right amount of sex, allow the woman the ability to receive compensation for her risk.

Please note that much of my “simplifying assumptions” are there to ease calculation. An actual plan would account for much more like STD risk which is also not borne equally (cervical cancer from HPV, for instance) and the costs women face in negotiating help (transaction costs are high) which I’ve meagerly encapsulated by considering what fraction of the mother’s income accounts for this (and not all transaction costs are monetary or able to be expressed in dollars).

Yes. This assumption was a holdover from the deadbeat dads thread where the idea was tossed around that since women have unchalleneged authority to end pregnancy, the man should therefore be absolved of support. It was not made clear in the OP.

Exactly.

I feel that if you thought about this a bit more and pictured a genuine negotiation you would find that there is no way for these choices to be equally free if for no other reason than the woman must go through pregnancy and childbirth.

40

I understand that you’re trying to put a cost on a risk analysis, and I’m not familiar with all the mechanics of such things, but if the two parties agree to an enforceable contract upfront, why is the man also paying an additional amount to the woman? If its based on the risk that she will lose 1/2 the child support cost from her income, with the contract mentioned above, doesn’t the man bear the exact same risk, for exactly the same amount? Is it based on the risk he will default on the contract?

Don’t state child support laws force (more or less effectively) this sort of arrangement? i.e. if there is a child produced from this act, the state will essentially force a similar contract on the man in terms of child support payments. Granted, these are usually some percentage of his income, rather than directly calculated from 1/2 the child’s cost, but the net effect is usually similar.