2014), ”From Shame To Game In One Hundred Years: An Economic Model Of The Rise

Parents socialize their children about many things, including sex. Socialization is costly. It uses scarce resources, such as time and e¤ort. Parents weigh the marginal gains from socialization against its costs. Those at the lower end of the social-economic scale indoctrinate their daughters less than others about the perils of premarital sex, because the latter will lose less from an out-of-wedlock birth. Modern contraceptives have pro-foundly a¤ected the calculus for instilling sexual mores, leading to a de-stigmatization of sex. As the odds of becoming pregnant from premarital sex decline there is less need to inculcate sexual mores. Technology a¤ects culture. This version of the paper will be presented at the conference on Health and the Macroeconomy,hoste