Children, standard of living and distributions in the family

The standard of living of children depends on (i) family income; (ii) production within the family; (iii) economies of scale within the family; and (iv) distributions within the family. We use 1976 and 1986 Family Expenditure Survey information on (i), models of housework time based on time-budget surveys to estimate (ii), and equivalence scales to take account of (iii). The distribution of consumption well-being within the family is found (for the time being at least) not to be directly observable. Theoretically imputed inequities are used to deal with (iv). Under the assumption of equity between children and adults within families, we find that children are systematically worse off than adults, and this difference has increased over time. The imputation of theoretical inequities within families has obvious effects for the relative standard of living of persons, but little or no effect on measures of inequality and poverty in society.