From Shame to Game in One Hundred Years: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and its De-Stigmatization

Fernandez-Villaverde, Jesus; Greenwood, Jeremy; Guner, Nezih

From Shame to Game in One Hundred Years: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and its De-Stigmatization

Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, Jeremy Greenwood and Nezih Guner

No 16, Economie d'Avant Garde Research Reports from Economie d'Avant Garde

Abstract: Societies socialize children about sex. This is done in the presence of peer-group effects, which may encourage undesirable behavior. Parents want the best for their children. Still, they weigh the marginal gains from socializing their children against its costs. Churches and states may stigmatize sex, both because of a concern about the welfare of their flocks and the need to control the cost of charity associated with out-of-wedlock births. Modern contraceptives have profoundly affected the calculus for instilling sexual mores. As contraception has improved there is less need for parents, churches and states to inculcate sexual mores. Technology affects culture.

Keywords: Add Health; contraception; culture; peer group effects; premarital sex; shame; socialization; stigma; technological progress (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D58 J13 N30 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2010-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.jeremygreenwood.net/papers/fgg14.pdf full text (application/pdf)
None

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eag:rereps:16

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economie d'Avant Garde Research Reports from Economie d'Avant Garde
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jeremy Greenwood ().