Economic thinking about household decisions in the second half of the 20th century has continuously evolved rapidly with the ever-growing individualization of men and women in the West. In neoclassical theory, in the unitary model, the trend for social scientists was to focus and treat households as a single individual with a single set of preferences. As more and more people in society are becoming individualistic, economists in recent times have been forced to elaborate on models that take into account this societal evolution.
Continue reading