Family Dining, Diet and Food Distribution: Planting the Seeds of Economic Growth

1. Family Dining, Diet and Food Distribution: Planting the Seeds of Economic Growth Dr. Maria Sophia Aguirre Department of Business and Economics The Catholic University of America Excellence in the Home Conference: Balanced Diet, Balanced Life London, May 8-9, 2006

2. Family and the Economy • The family plays an important role in the economy • Production of human, social, and moral capital • Resources used, economic activity, and economic structures • The family has experienced economic and demographic changes regarding family life and the allocation of time. • Decline in family size • Increase of single parent families • Increase in maternal employment • Increase in use of childcare • Decline of traditional family activities • Decrease in the time spent together by parents and children • Increased concern for children’s skills • Nutritional good habits have declined

3. How Does the Family Fit in the Economy?

4. We know from economic analysis that in economic development • There is a positive correlation between • human capital, infrastructure and economic growth • healthy institutions and economic development • health and income per capita • These positive correlations reflect an essential causal link between human capital and • healthy institutions (social capital) • infrastructure and technology • Life expectancy is a significant indicator of economic growth

5. This paper examines • The relation between family dining and human, moral and social capital • The impact of family dining on economic activity • This is relevant for both economic policy analysis and design because decisions and actions of households have long-term effects on their development and on the economic growth of the economy

6. Is family dining relevant for economic growth? • The family has a reciprocal relationship with the economic environment • The way households spend their time and consume goods indicate • The value parents place on the attainment of certain skills and the quality of consumption • The value placed on the context for learning • How families allocate their time is in part a function of • what is possible and desired by the household • what is possible and desired given the economic environment in which the household is located.

7. Family Dining and the Households’ Allocation of Time

8. Time allocation research has served two main purposes: • Macro level • Used to construct augmented economic and social accounting systems • Micro level • Used to describe and model household behavior • Division of responsibility for non-market activities by sex • Allocation of non-market time in children and care of elderly • Analysis of leisure time activities. • Examine household production activities: shopping, cleaning, cooking, repairs and maintenance for housing, etc. • Analyze household production choices, transportation mode, labor supply, leisure activities, household production and sleep

9. Household Production Models (hpm) • Becker (1965) proposed a framework to analyze the response of households to market and time prices, income, and technologies that influence their production of home goods • Incorporates the cost of time in the same way that other costs of goods are valued • Households viewed as both producers and consumers. • Two determinants of forgone earnings are the amount of time per dollar value of goods and the cost per unit of time • The cost of time is not constant • Varies across commodities • Changes throughout the course of the economic agent’s life. • Is dependent upon whether or not the time spent in an activity contributes to enhance other activities

10. Family Dining and hpm • Increases in the cost of time lead to an increase in the relative cost of time • As a result, mothers spend less time cooking and instead purchase meals prepared outside the home • Predicts that an increase in time cost causes a change in the methods used to produce commodities but not in the quality of consumption. • The quality of family meals should not be affected by substituting it by other ways of meeting the food needs • Does not include the interpersonal relational dimension of some consumption activities

11. Empirical evidence indicates • Quality of the family meal has declined • Reduction of frequency • Decline in the nutritional value of home meals. • Low interpersonal relations among family members. • Decrease in the quality of meals indicates • Family dining is not easily substitutable • Time spent together at meal cannot be substituted by the market • Decreases in the allocation of time to family meals indicate that they are considered an inferior good. • Women have retained primary responsibility for family food shopping and meal preparations

12. Family Dining and Human Capital

13. Empirical evidence indicates that • Healthy families are key for sustainable economic growth • Children develop best within a family that is functional, i.e., with a mother and a father in a stable marriage • Men and women also perform best within a stable family • When the family is disrupted, the individual and social costs are very large

14. Socioeconomic Relevance • The academic and social performance of a child is closely related to the structure of the family in which he lives -- important for the quality of human and social capital • The psychological stability and health of a child is closely related to healthy families -- important for worker productivity and government finances • Healthy families decrease the risk of abuse or neglect. The presence of stable parents reduces violence, risk of pregnancy and substance abuse in children -- important for social capital and government finances • Married women have a lower rate of depression, enjoy higher income and lower living costs, and have higher savings and wealth -- important for human and social capital and government finances

15. Percentage of Families that are in Poverty by Family Structure and Ethnicity, 2004 Source: Annual Demographic Survey, Poverty in the U.S.: US Census Bureau, March 2005, Table POVO2.

16. Percentage of Women who are in Poverty by Family Structure and Ethnicity, 2004 Source: Annual Demographic Survey, Poverty in the U.S.: US Census Bureau, March 2005, Table POVO2.

17. Percentage of Children who are in Poverty by Family Structure and Ethnicity, 2004 Source: Annual Demographic Survey, Poverty in the U.S.: US Census Bureau, March 2005, Table POV13.

18. Divorce vs Female Labor Force Participation United States Australia Sweden UK Netherlands Germany France Italy Japan Source: International Labor Organization.

19. Developed Countries Welfare Expenditures vs. Developing Countries Debt in 2003 Source: CIA World Handbook, 2005.

20. Family Relationships and Their Relation to the Frequency of Family Dining(% of Teens) 40% 40% 171% Source: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Columbia University.

21. Academic Performance and Its Relation to the Frequency of Family Dining(% of Teens Obtaining Mostly A or B Grades in School) 38% Source: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Columbia University.

22. Substance Abuse and Its Relation to the Frequency of Family Dining(% of Teens Who Have Tried Abuse Substances) 73% 142% 191% 169% Source:National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Columbia University.

23. Quality of Family Dining in Relation to their Frequency(% of Teens) 1.3 2.5 3.1 Source: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Columbia University.

24. Percentage of Children Whose Families have Family Dinners by Family Structure(% of children) 3.5 times higher Source: Administration for Children and Families, Department of House and Human Services

25. To Summarize • The frequency of family dining affects the quality of social and human capital generated within the family • Strengthens family relations • Helps improve academic performance • Helps prevent substance abuse • It is not enough for a family to eat together • Quality and the family structure where the family dinner takes place are important as well • Married couples eat more frequently together

26. Family Dining and Economic Activity

27. Chinese Famine 1958-1961 • Unexpectedly occurred despite the fact that grain per capita had increased • 30 million casualties and 33 million postponed births • Causes thus far put forward are able to explain its magnitude but not how it first started: • Bad weather • Reduction in sown acreage • Government’s high grain procurements • Forced collectivization • Bad management • Collapse of incentive mechanisms

28. Communal Dining Halls • 1958 Mao and Party created 2.65 million communal dining facilities. • Private kitchens were destroyed. • Peasants’ private food stocks were collectivized. • Cooking woks and pots were collected and melted down to serve as iron or steel. • Free food was provided and food products were channeled directly into dining halls. • “Open your stomach, eat as much as you wish, and work hard for socialism.”

29. Consequences • Overcomsumption ( a six month supply of food was exhausted in three months). • Inefficient use of resources • Leftovers were thrown away • Food was wasted in the transfer process from storage to cooking due to negligence and poor management • By the end of 1958 these changes resulted in food shortage and starvation • Mao refused to reverse this policy until mid 1961 • At this time most farmers chose to return to private, family dining • The famine was ended by the end of 1961, 6 months after Mao’s policies were reversed

30. Number of Deaths by Percentage of Population that used Communal Dining Halls Low use High use Source: Chang and Wen (1997), Table 5.

31. China late 1990s-2006 • Consumption by childtren in cities higher than that of adults. • Parents provide children with desired food but not a balanced diet. • Family meals have been replaced by milk, cookies, cold drinks, or health supplements that children do not need. • As a result, children are experiencing many health and digestion problems. • Forecasts show that Chinese families can’t support this pattern of consumption and therefore the standard of living for parents is falling. • Negative effects on human and social captial.

32. Government level • Multiple tools available: taxes, education, health care, homeownership, and worker participation policies. • Three issues to address: working hours, after school activities, and long commutes. • Work and after school activities: structural revision • Long working hours and short school hours combined with a myriad of extra curriculum activities are not conducive to frequent family dinners. • Change in paradigm required: address the needs of the family as a unit and not the needs of each of its members independent of each other. • Time should be a crucial component in public projects involving time savings, mostly transportation.

33. Private Sector • Businesses need to work towards the strengthening of the family. • The length of the workday as well as its structure requires immediate attention. • Some initiatives include: • systems of flexible working hours for men and women • work sharing • provision of facilities that allow parents, especially mothers, to work from their home certain days of the week.

34. Individual Level • Education and information regarding the importance of frequent family dinners, their role in the creation and growth of human capital, as well as the normal development of children • Only in this manner the allocation of time will be optimal in this area • Mothers have a special role: generally it is she who has primary responsibility for the execution of household tasks, especially in the area of food shopping and meal preparation, even though she might also work outside her home • Distribution within the family is usually carried out by women

35. Conclusions • We sought to establish the relevance of family dining for economic growth. • Relationship between family dining and the allocation of time. • Relationship between family dining and human, social, and moral capital. • Relationship between family dining and consumption

36. Frequent family dining positively affects nutrition and economic activity • Efficiency of distribution and consumption of food. • Affects the intertemporal dimension of consumption • Frequency of family dining is higher in stable families, i.e., within marriage. • Not enough to seek the implementation of remedial polices, i.e. attend dysfunctional situations. • Frequent family dinners need to be facilitated through family-friendly policies in all sectors of society.

37. “Many of today’s human, social, and moral capital problems are not going to be resolved in court rooms, legislative hearing rooms or classrooms, by judges, politicians, or teachers… Rather it will be solved in living rooms, dining rooms, and across kitchen tables – by parents and families” • Frequent family dinners are one of the simplest; most effective and important aspects of family life where interactions between parents and children take place and strong healthy relationships develop • This sustains economic growth