The economic problems of the family and what home economics has to offer toward their solution

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Reprinted from Proceedings of the Forty-first Annual Convention of the
Association of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, Chicago, Ill.,
November 15 to 17, 19:37.
TnE EcoNOMIC Pnom.EMS oF THE FAun~Y AND WHAT I-Io11-m EcoNOMICs
l-IAs TO OFFER Tow AnD TnEm SoLUTION
By CnAsE GorNG WoonuousE
In developing any educational program the functional approach is
essential. There must be motivation. Curricula to have a meaning must
be built around some life motive.
Now the underlying purpose of education is to enable the individual
to make as satisfactory a social adjustment as he is capable of, an adjust­ment
of p ersonality to environment and to other personalities, which are,
of course, in a sense a part of the environment. A large part of this
adjustment consists in facing reality, and in much of life reality is repre­sented
by the economic problems which must be met in connection with
family life.
The way in which these economic problems are met is, naturally,
dependent on many factors. The social, psychological, and economic prob­lems
of the family are so inte rrelated that an understanding of all seems
essential to the successful handling of each. A solution for the economic
problems of the family involves a correlation with a whole desirable
philosophy of family life.
It is for this reason that home economics, with its synthetic point
of v iew, can be of great service in bringing together speciali sts from
many ftelds to focus their attention on the economic problems of the
home. From the educational point of view this largely means developing
not new subject matter but a new approach and a new application of
a lready known principles and facts.
One of the outstanding contributions of home economics has been
its assertion that subject matter contains not only facts but the use of
these facts. From the point of view of curricula, this m ~an s that fir st
we must know what use a student expects to make, or should expect to
make, of the subject-matter, and then teach the subject-matter in such a
way as to make its application in a concret e s ituation possible. The stu­dent
must see the end to be attained, must see that that end involves a
real situation which he is likely to face and that the subject-matter can
be brought to bear on the successful handling of the situation.
In our teaching of economics, this idea has been too often lacking.
The end has been business, not the home. The same econom ic principles
apply to botl1. Both r epreEent important phases in the life of almost
every individual. Then if so much care is taken to see that the student
gets the application to business, why should not some attention, a t least,
be paid to assisting him to make the application to the home?
Perhaps this will be the task of home economics. The specialist will
teach their facts and principles, and home economics will devise a plan
for orientation and for application, showing how all the facts and prin­ciples
from the various speciali sts bear upon the home problem.
In business it is largely an economic situation which is faced. Tech­nical
problems, social problems, individual problems are all, it is true,
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there also. But in the long run the fmal decision is made on an economic
basis. "Will this pay?" is the determining factor.
Now in the home the situation is much more complex. The relatively
simple measure of profit .cannot be used. Not only the economic but all
sides of a problem must be faced at once.
Perhaps out of this situation there will develop a new teaching tech­nique.
Perhaps the economic problems of the home can best be approached
through the case method, the facts gained in "regular'' courses being
brought to bear on the problems. In one school of social work this
method has been evolved. A case, which after all is simply a set of family
problems, is presented for discussion. The leader of the discussion is in
turn the psychiatrist, the physician, the psychologist, the economist and
sociologist, and the political scientist on the staff. Throughout, the case
worker is chairman. The final summing up is done by her. Is she not
in many ways analogous to the home economist? Both represent a point
of view, a synthesis, rather than a specialized subject, both have to use
specialists for the solution of their problem, which is in both cases a
family situation. Homemaking has suffered from the subject-matter
approach. In some way we must begin with a given situation and end
with subject-matter. This is particularly true of economics, which seems
so remote and so unreal to many students.
The approach, then to the economic problems in which we are inter­ested
lies in the answer to the question, "\Vhat functions are performed
by the homemaker or others in the home which have an economic con­notation?"
We must determine the main objectives of economic interest
by a study of what the home does, and what it dem-ands and needs. In
this study the main thing to remember is that the family is a process.
It changes, has different needs, faces different situations at different times.
It is not a s ingle unit but "a set of interacting personaliti es," each develop­ing
and changing from day to clay. Likewise it is situated in a dynamic
world. The economic problems the family is facing today arc the out­growth
of ecot~omic conditions in the past. But they themselves will soon
be the past, the ground upon which new problems are being built. If we
would gain control of the situation, it is to the problems of the future
that we must b end our energies. \Ve must not become so engrossed in
finding ways of meeting the problems of today that we forget to study
those of the past and to try to foresee those of the future.
Nor must we consider the economic problems of the home purely in
tl10se aspects which deal with it as a business unit and as a place in
which to rear children. The adults, as individuals, merit some considera-tion.
The economic functions of the home are performed by both and women.
They have been cla>s ifiecl as follows:
(1)
(fJ )
(3)
Those connected with personal efficiency, with the carrying on of
an occupation, and with ability to spend effectively.
Those connected with the administration and with the technical
affairs of the household.
Those connected with the outside " ·o l'lcl.
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One thing which must be worked for is a greater realization of the
close relationship between all three. The homemaker especially must be
made more aware of the close relationship between conditions inside the
home and outside in the community, more fully aware of her responsibility
as a director of an economic and social group, more awake to the place of
her work and of her household in the present-day social and economic
order.
Life for both men and women has been too sharply divided into the
home and the world outside. While we must retain the character of the
home as a haven from outside forces, still the close relation between the
two must be seen if we are to reach a satisfactory adjustment of the
problems of the home.
In more detail, what are the functions of the homemaker? Perhaps
they could be listed as follows:
(1) Care and management of the house.
(2) Buying for the family.
(3) Care and training of children.
( 4) Coordination of interests of the members of the family.
(5) Development of a philosophy of life.
(6) Working out the reiations of the family and community.
Each one involves economic problems. What, specifically, are these prob­lems?
The first, it goes without saying, is the obtaining of a sufficient and
regular income. This cannot be regulated by the individual or family
alone. Many social problems must be solved before an adequate, regular
income will be forthcoming for all families. There are questions of social
justice, education, vocational training, health, all factors quite beyond
the power of the individual family to handle. Again the distribution of
the national wealth and income, t he regularity of employment, changes
in economic organization, population changes, immigration, the predominant
theories of private property, the policies of taxation, all have direct and
indirect effects upon the income of the family.
Then there are the conditions of production. The place in which work
must be done determines to a great extent where the family must live,
how many hours a day the earning members are away from the home.
The conditions of work and the ease or difficulty of transportation affect
directly the health and general physical well-being of the earning members
and indirectly of all members of the family. Change in the methods of
production may mean a complete reorganization of certain aspects of
family life. Under the craft system and the domestic system the family
worked together in the home. Now they are dispersed in offices and
factories. Electrification is just over the horizon. Will this take many
families out of the city and back to the country? What effect will it
have on labor standards and organization? How will it change the life
of the family?
Prices and the general price level, depressions, business cycles, all
affect the family through its income. ·The types of financial institutions
developed, facilities for obtaining suitable insurance, investments, credit,
all again are economic agencies which influence the life of the family but
over which the individual family as such has no power.
The leaders in homemaking must have an understanding of economic
organization, and especially must they recognize the fact of interdepend-
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ence, that our economic organization is a great joint enterprise. They
must have a social point of view, a realization that the economic problems
of the home can be worked out only by group study and experiment and
that there are no formulre. For example, they must think of housing not
only in terms of well-planned houses and of convenient kitchens but in
terms of community planning, transportation, zoning, streets and other
public services, and the financing of all these.
This housing problem has hardly been touched. The so-called co­operative
apartments are in most cases built by speculators and sold to
individuals. True cooperation and group planning are the rare exception.
And yet at a recent homemakers' conference it was felt that the outstand­ing
difficulty in applying better methods to the operating of the household
was that so many families lived in cast-off houses.
The problem of buying is so well known as, at first glance, to merit
not more than mention. But here again a problem which begin5 as a
personal family problem, upon investigation opens out into the larger
problem of commodity distribution and marketing. At present it is much
in the air and is perhaps the problem to be most vigorously attacked.
Under the buying problem there are several phases. First, there
is that of the general standard of living. This can be viewed from the
national aspect. The people who adopt a rational standard, that is,
one well balanced between the different needs, where the costly and useless
conventional necessities are eliminated, which permits some saving and
some leisure, and which leads to the use of leisure in ways to develop
the individual physically and mentally will be the best prepared to face
emergen<:ies and to meet competition.
The standard of living of a nation is largely shaped by those who
do the purchasing. The homemaker is one of the largest purchasers. Her
sense of values determines to a great extent what shall be produced. Is
she going to continue to make her expenditures on the basis of imitation,
tradition, habit, and suggestion, or on the basis of independent and critical
judgment of individual and social values? In other words, one of the
economic problems of the family is the development of a social theory
of 'consumption. If this is to be developed, the statement so often made
and so seldom acted upon that consumers need training, skill, and ability
as great as that required of producers, that consumption is the end of
production and the consumer is potentially in control of production, must
be given real vitality. Home economists form one of the few groups
interested in the development of a social theory and a social practice of
consumption.
Many factors in modern life make this difficult. New facts, new
inventions result in a multiplicity of choices. Without guidance a wise
choice is difficult to make. The old method of equipping the individual
with the knowledge of how to test fabrics, for example, is not effective
in this day of ready-mades, of package goods. Again it is the group and
not only the individual which must act. The individual can be given
a point of view, a willingness and desire to choose wisely, but in order
to do so standards, labels, specifications, and such mechanisms must be
provided for his use.
The buyer must have some idea of the meaning of price, be able to
follow changes in the cost of living as indicated by the cost of living
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index numbers. He must know the infiuenc<: of the consumer over price,
and especially must he realize that the upper limit of price depends on
the willingness of the buyer to pay, however he may be influenced in
arr iving at that willingness.
On the other hand the lowest price at which an article can long be
sold must cover cost of raw material, cost of fabrication, cost of physical
clistl'ibution, including transportation and storage and the cost of market­ing,
which includes all the costs of buying and selling from the time the
raw material leaves the hands of the producer until the finished article
is delivered to the utlimate consumer. Taxes are, of course, included in
these costs.
The problem of the cost of living, then, makes it essential that the
family be intelligently interested in production and in distribution and
marketing. Production, in so far as it is handled as an engineering prob­lem,
is one of the most efficient aspects of our life. But there are leaks.
Waste is caused by faulty management of materials, plant, equipment,
and personnel. Ill health, physical and mental defects, industrial accidents,
all largely avoidable, cut down production. Restriction of production is
also intentionally caused by owners and sometimes by labor.
Again a great waste is due to the fact that industry has so largely
developed on the peak load principle. Plants are built large enough to
care for the heaviest demand, so at times they must produce at less than
full capacity. For example, one statistical expert states that industrial
conditions are normal when 60 per cent of the blast fumaces are in
operation. Still, the total overhead must be paid for by the consumers
of the amount actually produced.
So on one hand we have obvious wastes resulting in a cutting down
of the volume of production and an increase in the cost of each unit
produced. Yet, on the other hand, we have periods when goods produced
cannot be sold, though there are people in distress who need these goods.
Obviously we are faced with a riddle. How can production be carried
on with large scale efficiency and all that is produced be sold at a price
which will enable the producers to continue in business? The answer to
this probably lies in the answer to another question: "Is it possible under
the existing economic system to enable the poorer classes to purchase
enough so that the consumer market as a whole will be able to absorb
all that our factories produce?" To answer this question, study and
research on the part of many persons will be required, but the ·consumer
is vitally concerned and should push forward the inquiries which may
lead to its solution.
One phase of this situation . is more open to attack than are others.
T his is the phase dealing with marketing.
The potential production of our industries has increased in almost
miraculous fashion within the last half century. One cotton mill operator
today handles more looms than did 50 in 1870, one garment worker with
a six rib-cutting machine replaces B5 hand workers. Up to about 1900
this great increase in production did not cause much difficulty. New
markets were opening up and it was a case of buying goods rather than
of selling them. During this period new commodities were developed,
the American stanrlarcl of .living rose to a higher plane than that of any
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other nation, and the cost of living advanced in proportion to the public
demand for or acceptance of comfort, convenience, and service.
But new markets were not always forthcoming. Methods of produc­tion
continued to improve and more and more goods to be produced.
Each producer rightly wished to have the benefits of large-scale produc­tion.
The result was the development of our present system of forced
distribution. Each manufacturer tries to produce a full line and to serve
a national market. This has meant national advertising, high-power sales­manship,
forced distribution through wholesaler and retailer, expensive
methods of house-to-house canvassing, the production of a vast number of
styles in the attempt to get "something different," and new methods of
credit like instalment selling.
More persons have been drawn into the work of distribution. In
1870 10 per cent of the population gainfully employed was engaged in
transporting, distributing, and marketing goods; in 1900 the number had
increased to 16 per cent, in 19!30 to 95 per cent.
Commodity values have been lost in a maze of distribution and of
service costs. When it takes 63 cents of the consumer's dollar to distribute
37 cents worth of breakfast food, one begins to wonder whether package
goods, brand names, national advertising, and national markets are worth
what we are paying for them. Do we want to pay the $64,090,739 spent
in the last 10 years in advertising toilet goods in magazines alone?
Advertising, in so far as it suggests new methods of filling wants
better than the old, or of filling hitherto unmet wants, or where it increases
the volume of production and so decreases unit costs, is of real value. But
where it develops new wants too rapidly or is merely competitive, or
induces to luxurious or competitive expenditures or to spending when
one had better develop leisure, it is uneconomic and unsocial.
There are also the wastes in physical distribution, unnecessary pur­chase
and sale transactions, cross hauls, loss from delay, repeated handling,
and inadequate marketing facilities, especially in terminals.
Here one thing to remember is the phenomenon of pyramiding. The
further back in the distribution process cost is incurred, the more th.e con­sumer
pays for it because each agent in the distribution process figures
his mark-up on what he has paid for the article, that is on the cost which
has accumulated on it up to the time it reaches his hands. For example,
a report shows that 5.9 cents transportation costs on material for one
dollar's worth of cornflakes from farmer to elevator had pyramided to
91.8 by the time it reached the consumer, while 9 cents for transporta­t
ion between manufacturer and retailer had pyramided to 19.4 cents.
There is no doubt from the family's point of view of the necessity
for an intelligent mechanism for delivering goods an"d services according
to needs and not merely on a profit basis. But apparently the present
system is not profiting the manufacturers much better than the consumers.
A recent newspaper item states that the American Shoe Style Con­ference
has announced plans for fewer basic patterns and designs for
next spring. Shoe dealers and distributors find the present plan of great
diversity unprofitable. Examples showing the beginning of the same trend
in other trades could be cited. After all, perhaps those persons who have
been saying that the true long-run interests of consumer and producer
are the same are correct, and it may be possible for the family and in-
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dustry together to work out a system which will better serve the interests
of both than does the one under which they are at present living.
Again the problem comes back to consumer education. The consumer
must realize that he has the potential power to control production, to
insist upon articles of beauty and of serviceability, made in the most eco­nomical
way and under the best labor conditions possible, given tbe general
circumstances. He must take the social point of view. His individual
problem can only be solved by cooperation with the group. Legislative
panaceas will not do the work. The industrial revolution which caused
most of these problems was an economic and social movement. Its results
can be met best by economic and social means, and especially by changes
in our traditional habits of buying, by introducing science into consumption
as well as into production, and upon that basis developing a social theory
of consumption.
Up to now we have been discussing problems which cannot be met by
the individual family, although it feels their presence. But there are also
economic problems which can, in part, be met by the individual family,
acting more or less alone. Within the household there are all the problems
of an engineering and economic character which industry has to face. In
household production, as in factory production, the problems of planning
the work, routing the materials, arrangement of equipment and of plant,
methods of work, and labor policy, arise. Time has an economic value in
the household as in the factory, and plans must be made to carry on the
work with the least expenditure of time and energy and to eliminate the
less essential and to include the more essential.
Economic pressure has forced better methods into industry and is
doing the same in the home. But when thinking of the application of
business methods we must think in terms of the household industry and
not of the present household unit. The unit has changed in the manu­facturing
world. The vertical trust is now more important than the
isolated plant. Associations care for the interests of a whole industry.
It is not sufficient for the household to take over the better methods, the
scientific management of the plant. It can learn from industry in its
treatment of personnel, its plans for recreation, for health, for relations
with the community, and above all for the working together of those with
common problems and interests. If the individual homemaker could be
given a .sense of belonging to a large and importan:t group, a sense of
responsibility to others, her feeling of isolation would be lessened and her
s~nse of her own worth increased as well as her methods improved.
A real question, then, is how far and how long should we go on making
more efficient the processes of the individual household unit, and how much
of our energy should go into the endeavor to socialize the processes still
further, putting them on. the basis of a larger scale industry. What has
been the real outcome of introducing labor-saving machines and better
methods into the household? Have the advantages to be gained from it
about reached the peak, and is it time for a next step?
If households could be thought of in terms of an industry, the applica­tion
of better business methods would be clearer. One indication of the
beginning of this trend is the newer approach to the domestic service
problem. In at least three centers within the past few years, this problem
has been attacked upon an industrial basis with a training and an employ-
ment center managed by the employers. It is true that only a very small
percentage of homes have domestic service, but these homes represent a
sufficiently large absolute number to make them worth considering. An­other
indication is the existence of at least one consumer's organization
issuing lists of commodities evaluated according to their real worth to
aid its members in buying.
The use of the industrial association idea rather than that of the in­dividual
plant permits the acceptance of certain realities which we have
not fully faced. In our teaching we have been so democratic that we have
ignored individual differences. Not all homemakers are managers. As in
business, some are leaders and some are routine workers. We cannot
turn each individual housewife into a planning foreman, or a manager, but
we could develop organizations and methods whereby she might have the
benefit of working in an industrial association. This would induce a more
professional attitude toward homemaking. The leaders would probably
be paid, and the world gives recognition to those who have high earning
power and responsibility.
The most personal and individual of all the economic problems of
the family is that of handling the family finances. It is involved in many
maladjustments between husband and wife. Sometimes it is merely the
scapegoat in the difficulty, but often it is a real contributing cause. When
there is not a real understanding of this problem, there is rarely a real
conception of a partnership with full common interests.
Well-planned expenditures are a step toward family unity. Under­standing
leads to harmony. Where the family plans and records its ex­penditures,
there is a tool at hand by which the individual can better
understand himself in his relations to his family through a study of his
expenditures. There is necessarily financial frankness between husband
and wife, a sharing of present knowledge and of future plans. Worry is
reduced, for at least the difficulties are shared. The children get more
light on why they cannot have certain things. The family conference for
formulation of a plan is an aid in their training, not only in handling
money but in taking part in confidential discussions, in recognizing the
rights of others, and in knowing when to share.
Plans and records of expenditures are not a guarantee of savings,
not a panacea for all financial ills, but they do help a family to meet
not only its economi'c problems but its problems of relationships in a more
effective manner.
Among the actual expenditures the cost of children, of housing, and
of health, the two latter often being simply aspects of the first, are the
most pressing. Increased knowledge has brought more items and services
into the list of necessities under these headings. Health is felt most be­cause
there is no choice. It is an emergency which falls on the family.
Again and again in family accounts we come across this item as the cause
of the deficit at the end of the year. Considerable study is being put on
this problem. The suggestions point to group action, to some plan for
cooperative or state-assisted clinics and hospitals. For if the individual
family has to meet increasingly heavy health expenditures, it will mean
taking out the health expenditure as a first call on the budget and reduc­ing
the standard of living to make it fit what is left.
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The problem of the work of married women outside the home is an
economic one in most of its phases. Of course, the great social move­ments
of the past century, individualism, democracy, feminism, have in­fluenced
it. Urbanism, the diminishing size of families, and the great
economic changes have, however, provided the basis upon which these
theories could work.
If more work is taken out of t he home, if large-scale production is
so much more efficient than household production, how will the family
compensate for the real income which the homemaker has protluced?
Either the income earned by the father and the older children will have
to increase, or the state will have to pay the homemaker for her soci~l
services or she will have to find gainful employment, for it does not seem
likely that by devoting her new leisure to· management she could spend
the old family income so much more efficiently as to make up for the loss
of her work as home producer.
These, then, . are some of the economic problems which the family
meets, the problem of an adequate and regular income, of the cost of
living, of better household management, of handling family finances. They
touch wide problems of the distribution of wealth, of production and
physical distribution of goods, of marketing, of a social theory of con­sumption.
They are to be solved only by joint action, by cooperation
under intelligent leadership. In some way we must give the family and,
perhaps, the homemaker especially, a type of education which will develop
a real interest in and some underst anding of social relations and of social
control, some realization that social changes can be consciously guided
and even brought about without social disorganization, and that the eco­nomic
problems of the family are not individual but social.
Martha Blakeney Hodges
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