Children in the Household Economy

Children&s;s productive roles in the family economies of rural Iowa are elements of two adaptive strategies amidst scarce resources. One strategy lowers demand, while the other includes ways of increasing the supply. This chapter begins with paid work experiences over 1988-1989, estimate earnings for this period, and then focuses on the children who claim they had a paid job at the time of the field study, in the winter and early spring of 1989. It explores the kinds of jobs held by boys and girls, as well as the types of employers, and ask whether they felt they worked more or less than age-mates. The solidarity culture of life on the family farm also suggests that children&s;s earnings would be highly valued by farm parents, particularly when the effort is part of an apprenticeship for farming, as it is for a number of the boys.