Should kids pay their own way?

Tomlin, P. (2015) Should kids pay their own way? Political Studies, 63 (3). pp. 663-678. ISSN 0032-3217 doi: 10.1111/1467-9248.12111

Abstract/Summary

Children are expensive to raise. Ensuring that they are raised such that they are able to lead a minimally decent life costs time and money, and lots of both. Who is responsible for bearing the costs of the things that children are undoubtedly owed? This is a question that has received comparatively little scrutiny from political philosophers, despite children being such a drain on public and private finances alike. To the extent that there is a debate, two main views can be identified. The Parents Pay view says that parents, responsible for the existence of the costs, must foot the bill. The Society Pays view says that a next generation is a benefit to all, and so to allow parents to foot the bill alone is the worst kind of free-riding. In this paper, I introduce a third potentially liable party currently missing from the debate: children themselves. On my backward-looking view, we are entitled to ask people to contribute to the raising of children on the basis that they have benefited from being raised themselves.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/32762
Identification Number/DOI	10.1111/1467-9248.12111
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Politics, Economics and International Relations > Politics and International Relations
Uncontrolled Keywords	children;distributive justice;principle of fair play
Publisher	Wiley
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