Children's Saving: A Study in the Development of Economic Behavior. - book reviews

Adolescence, Winter, 1994

In the past, attempts to study the emergence of children's economic consciousness have failed to take account of the practical nature of the "economic" in the history of western cultures. Economic socialization has been seen as the acquisition of abstract knowledge about the institutions of adult economic culture.

The child has been seen as a spectator, acquiring knowledge of that culture, but never really part of it. However, economic actions are directed not toward the attainment of knowledge, but rather toward the practical solution of problems of resource allocation imposed by constraint. Children, just like adults, are faced with practical problems of resource allocation. Their response to these problems may be different from those of adults but no less "economic" for that. This realization forms the heart of this book. In it children are seen as both inhabitants of their own "playground" economic subculture and actors in the wider economic world of adults, solving, or attempting to solve, practical economic problems. In order to highlight this child-centered approach, the authors studied the way children tackle the particular problems posed by limitations of income. In short, how children learn to save.