Pricing the Priceless Child The Changing Social Value of Children

Viviana A. Zelizer

How did a child come to be valued for love rather than for work, and what did that change in law, insurance and family life?

At a glance

You will see that ordinary ideas about childhood, like children not working, took shape within a few decades
You will understand why we expect children to give love, not money, even though they cost a great deal to raise
You will learn how the way we price things like a child's life or an adoption shifted with feelings about childhood

Introduction
1 From Mobs to Memorials: The Sacralization of Child Life
2 From Useful to Useless: Moral Conflict Over Child Labor
3 From Child Labor to Child Work: Redefining the Economic World of Children
4 From a Proper Burial to a Proper Education: The Case of Children’s Insurance
5 From Wrongful Death to Wrongful Birth: The Changing Legal Evaluation of Children
6 From Baby Farms to Black-Market Babies: The Changing Market for Children
7 From Useful to Useless and Back to Useful? Emerging Patterns in the Valuation of Children