The parental dividend is a policy proposal first suggested by economist Shirley P. Burggraf[1][2] during a Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe College.
[7][8][9] Shirley P. Burggraf's parental dividend is described in The Feminine Economy and Economic Man: Reviving the Role of the Family in the Post-Industrial Age (1997).
[7] The proposal has been described as an atypical feminist approach to solving crises of the American family unit by relying on market forces.
[10] According to sociologist David Popenoe on the topic of the parental dividend, “We should launch a society wide discussion of what would be the most far-reaching family policy of all: restructuring the national Social Security system.”[11] Parental dividend theory is based on the idea that the future productivity of children can be helped or harmed by Social Security payments made in real-time by families to retirees.
[18] The concept links expenses associated with raising children, especially the opportunity costs of lost wages, to workers' time outside the work force resulting in reduced Social Security benefits.