Hummel - Chapter 6

Before reading this chapter I did not fully grasp how big of a role productivity played. On page 140 Wheelan talks about human capital throughout the course of history and describes why people started having less children after the industrial revolution because of large productivity gains that made the parents time more expensive. People started having less children because the advantages of having more kids to help out on the farm decreased while the advantages of having fewer children increased. "people began investing their rising incomes in the quality of their children, not merely the quantity". I found this interesting because it would make sense for poorer peoples to have more children to help them out, while a wealthy society would have fewer kids so more attention can be put into crafting their futures as professionals. This begins to explain the rampant population growth in poorer countries and makes me wonder why universal education isn't more important in these counties.