FAMILY ECONOMICS AND POLICY - 2020/1

Module Overview

The module examines the nature and behaviour of households in modern economies. The module will introduce a supply and demand model of the marriage market, the analysis of household production and division of labour in the family, gains from marriage, the marriage market, divorce, intra-household bargaining, economics of fertility, and investment in children. The module contains both theoretical and empirical components and will include the interpretation of estimates from econometric analysis.

Module provider

Economics

Module Leader

BLANDEN Jo (Economics)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 6

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 1

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

Indicative content includes:

• Analysis of the economic aspects of the family. Development and application of microeconomic tools to the study of households and their interaction in the economy.


• The marriage market, 


• Intra-household bargaining; Divorce


• Fertility; sex ratio and its imbalances


• Household production and the division of labour


• Investments in children, in life and through inheritance


• The impact of state interventions in the family

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

Not applicable

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of household behaviour and contemporary family policies.

Thus the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• The coursework will be composed of one in-class test (30%) of multi-part questions. This will provide students with an assessment of their understanding of the basic concepts and empirical patterns, indicated in the learning outcomes and module content.


• Final exam of two hours consisting of three sections including short-answer questions, a question based on a stimulus (for example, real world data, or an Economist article) and some essay questions.  

Formative assessment and feedback

Students will receive verbal feedback during lectures through direct questioning.

After the class test, the test questions, solutions, and main mistakes will be discussed in class. Each student will receive their own script with comments on their performance and a written marking scheme by question. All this feedback will help students to judge their own performance and prepare for the final exam. In addition, students will be encouraged to attend office hours to receive further verbal feedback.

Module aims

• provide students with the microeconomic tools needed to analyse fundamental contemporary questions concerning the individuals' behaviour inside and outside the family.
• help students to understand contemporary issues in economics and public policy concerning the formation and dissolution of families, family decision making, and investments made in children.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:

• enhance skills in analytical and critical thinking, and in written and verbal presentation


• appreciate the complexities of decision making, weighing theory and practice

The learning and teaching methods include:

• 2 hour lectures / classes (including in-class discussions) x 11 weeks.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: ECO3051

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2020/1 academic year.