THE FAMILY, OUR NUCLEUS ECONOMY

The place is too small and hardly noticeable in the global map such that the media scantly make headlines of it; yet its impact on the economy is enormous.

This place is called the family/home. When this place is despised, our economy is depleted.
Interestingly the English word economy originates from a Greek word, oikos, which, we are told, means household and oikonomia means ‘household management’. The US Government and data surveys overwhelmingly document that ‘married-parent households work, earn and save at significantly higher rates than other family households as well as pay a lion’s share of all income taxes collected by the government’. 

The married intact family or married-parent household has the following advantages, as per the studies: it works smarter and more efficiently; its accumulation of assets is at a higher rate than never-married parents; the ability to pass on wealth is greatest in a intact family; married parents fall into the highest income brackets. This is in contrast to the stepfamily, single parents and/or divorced households.
The intact married family is an economic wonder not only because of the resources of two people brought together, but the ‘unique contribution of a committed husband and wife that are diluted in other living arrangements’.

Nobel Laureate in Economics, Gary Becker, is recorded to suggest that marriage allows for a greater specialisation of labour between husband and wife, which in turn leads to greater productivity. Sociologist, Mark Regnerus opines; “Marriage is an unbelievably efficient arrangement and the best wealth creating institution there is.”
Marriage boots a man’s earnings by 10 to 30 per cent, claims Yale Law Professor Robert C Ellickson.

And we are told this ‘marriage premiums’ begins among young men who are engaged to be married and goes up the longer that a man remains married, as per Linda J Waite and Maggie Gallagher. It is easy to think of a dependent wife at home as a mere parasite and non-participant in the economic upward spiral at the home, whereas the married mother in the home who focuses her attention on children and the home is said to be the economy. A wise lecturer of mine at the University of Swaziland once brought this fact to the attention of his students.

He cited the scenario of a woman/wife who at around 9am is seen returning from dropping children at school and makes a drive to Pick ‘N’ Pay and makes her groceries. This may appear minute in the grand scheme of things, but not so in reality. She is the force by which the home thrives.

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