Behavioral approaches to public policies usually assume that public policies are needed because the human mind is biased through and through. This approach is especially appealing when it comes to dealing with populations from lower socioeconomic statuses (SES), who are construed as displaying such irrational behaviors as having children too early, underinvesting in education, or neglecting their health. Decision makers, who overwhelmingly originate from relatively high SES backgrounds, often apply their own intuitions when designing public policies and usually assume that the behaviors associated with deprivation are not really chosen and that public interventions nudging behavioral changes are necessarily positive.
In the article, Pepper & Nettle (P&N) rather contend that the “present-oriented behaviors of the constellation are a contextually appropriate response to structural and ecological factors, rather than pathology or a failure of willpower.” In other words, people from poor backgrounds reproduce earlier not because they fail to understand the costs of their behavior, the benefits of education, or the way contraception works but because they actually have a different set of preferences. Put simply, different ecologies produce different preferences.
This perspective has profound implications for the way public policies are designed. Specifically, when relying on their own intuitions and behavioral preferences, policy makers produce cost-benefit analyses that are contextually appropriate responses to their contexts, which likely differ from those of the target population.
Take the example of early pregnancy. In 2014, 250,000 babies were born to women ages 15 to 19 years in the United States (Hamilton et al. Reference Hamilton, Osterman, Curtin and Mathews2014). A strong class gradient is associated with this phenomenon, suggesting that unfavorable SES conditions affect young women's sexual behavior (Penman-Aguilar et al. Reference Penman-Aguilar, Carter, Snead and Kourtis2013). Confronted with these facts, and perhaps based on its own cost-benefit analysis, the public often makes two important assumptions: (1) Early pregnancies are not chosen, and women would delay childbearing if provided with adequate family-planning options; and (2) early childbearing is one of the main reasons why many women from poor backgrounds drop out of school, thereby depriving themselves of adequate training and, ultimately, of opportunities to earn decent wages.
Ethnographic and economic data suggest that these premises can be disputed. In their ethnography of young unwed mothers in poor Philadelphia neighborhoods, Edin and Kefalas (Reference Edin and Kefalas2011) describe how young women choose to have children early and illustrate their data with the poignant anecdote of a young pregnant woman who turns to the authors and asks: “Why is it so hard for people here to believe that the women would want their children?” (p. 183). These insights are further validated by sociological surveys indicating that poor women view childlessness as utterly tragic. Female high-school dropouts are indeed more than five times as likely to say that “childless people lead empty lives” compared to college-educated women (p. 204).
One might argue, however, that paternalism is justified, because these young women are blind to the enormous opportunity-cost that early childbearing entails. Against this view, research suggests that early pregnancies have a considerably lower impact on life outcomes for poor women than for middle-class women. Specifically, economists have demonstrated that the wage trajectory of low-skill women goes almost unchanged, regardless of whether they choose to have their first child in their early or mid-twenties versus in their early thirties. For high-skill women, on the other hand, the wage trajectory flattens out abruptly at the moment they start having children (see Figs. 2 and 4 in Wilde et al. Reference Wilde, Batchelder and Ellwood2010). According to the authors, a low-skill woman would gain as little as $20,000 (or 5% of lifetime earnings) by waiting 10 years compared to $125,000 (or more than 15% of lifetime earnings) for a high-skill woman.
To summarize, however strong our intuitions might be, early childbearing in underprivileged populations reflects stronger absolute preferences for having children and a relatively accurate assessment of the fact that early childbearing is associated with fewer forgone opportunities in low SES backgrounds. In line with P&N's argument, this set of evidence suggests that women are responding in a contextually appropriate fashion to the harshness of their environments and that early disadvantage might drive early childbearing and other negative outcomes.
This perspective has vital consequences when designing public policies. In particular, it suggests that targeting early childbearing by giving information about family planning, distributing contraceptives, or attracting women's attention to forgone training opportunities might have disappointing effects. In line with this idea, a recent Cochrane systematic review of randomized controlled trials targeting teenage pregnancy suggests that such interventions have small effects at best (Oringanje et al. Reference Oringanje, Meremikwu, Eko, Esu, Meremikwu and Ehiri2016). Ironically, the review equates teen pregnancies and unintended pregnancies right from the title. Given limited public budgets, facilitating access to contraceptives may be the best we can do, but unless we target the lack of opportunities upstream, these initiatives are likely to have a limited impact.
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Behavioral approaches to public policies usually assume that public policies are needed because the human mind is biased through and through. This approach is especially appealing when it comes to dealing with populations from lower socioeconomic statuses (SES), who are construed as displaying such irrational behaviors as having children too early, underinvesting in education, or neglecting their health. Decision makers, who overwhelmingly originate from relatively high SES backgrounds, often apply their own intuitions when designing public policies and usually assume that the behaviors associated with deprivation are not really chosen and that public interventions nudging behavioral changes are necessarily positive.
In the article, Pepper & Nettle (P&N) rather contend that the “present-oriented behaviors of the constellation are a contextually appropriate response to structural and ecological factors, rather than pathology or a failure of willpower.” In other words, people from poor backgrounds reproduce earlier not because they fail to understand the costs of their behavior, the benefits of education, or the way contraception works but because they actually have a different set of preferences. Put simply, different ecologies produce different preferences.
This perspective has profound implications for the way public policies are designed. Specifically, when relying on their own intuitions and behavioral preferences, policy makers produce cost-benefit analyses that are contextually appropriate responses to their contexts, which likely differ from those of the target population.
Take the example of early pregnancy. In 2014, 250,000 babies were born to women ages 15 to 19 years in the United States (Hamilton et al. Reference Hamilton, Osterman, Curtin and Mathews2014). A strong class gradient is associated with this phenomenon, suggesting that unfavorable SES conditions affect young women's sexual behavior (Penman-Aguilar et al. Reference Penman-Aguilar, Carter, Snead and Kourtis2013). Confronted with these facts, and perhaps based on its own cost-benefit analysis, the public often makes two important assumptions: (1) Early pregnancies are not chosen, and women would delay childbearing if provided with adequate family-planning options; and (2) early childbearing is one of the main reasons why many women from poor backgrounds drop out of school, thereby depriving themselves of adequate training and, ultimately, of opportunities to earn decent wages.
Ethnographic and economic data suggest that these premises can be disputed. In their ethnography of young unwed mothers in poor Philadelphia neighborhoods, Edin and Kefalas (Reference Edin and Kefalas2011) describe how young women choose to have children early and illustrate their data with the poignant anecdote of a young pregnant woman who turns to the authors and asks: “Why is it so hard for people here to believe that the women would want their children?” (p. 183). These insights are further validated by sociological surveys indicating that poor women view childlessness as utterly tragic. Female high-school dropouts are indeed more than five times as likely to say that “childless people lead empty lives” compared to college-educated women (p. 204).
One might argue, however, that paternalism is justified, because these young women are blind to the enormous opportunity-cost that early childbearing entails. Against this view, research suggests that early pregnancies have a considerably lower impact on life outcomes for poor women than for middle-class women. Specifically, economists have demonstrated that the wage trajectory of low-skill women goes almost unchanged, regardless of whether they choose to have their first child in their early or mid-twenties versus in their early thirties. For high-skill women, on the other hand, the wage trajectory flattens out abruptly at the moment they start having children (see Figs. 2 and 4 in Wilde et al. Reference Wilde, Batchelder and Ellwood2010). According to the authors, a low-skill woman would gain as little as $20,000 (or 5% of lifetime earnings) by waiting 10 years compared to $125,000 (or more than 15% of lifetime earnings) for a high-skill woman.
To summarize, however strong our intuitions might be, early childbearing in underprivileged populations reflects stronger absolute preferences for having children and a relatively accurate assessment of the fact that early childbearing is associated with fewer forgone opportunities in low SES backgrounds. In line with P&N's argument, this set of evidence suggests that women are responding in a contextually appropriate fashion to the harshness of their environments and that early disadvantage might drive early childbearing and other negative outcomes.
This perspective has vital consequences when designing public policies. In particular, it suggests that targeting early childbearing by giving information about family planning, distributing contraceptives, or attracting women's attention to forgone training opportunities might have disappointing effects. In line with this idea, a recent Cochrane systematic review of randomized controlled trials targeting teenage pregnancy suggests that such interventions have small effects at best (Oringanje et al. Reference Oringanje, Meremikwu, Eko, Esu, Meremikwu and Ehiri2016). Ironically, the review equates teen pregnancies and unintended pregnancies right from the title. Given limited public budgets, facilitating access to contraceptives may be the best we can do, but unless we target the lack of opportunities upstream, these initiatives are likely to have a limited impact.