Burggraf writes that everyone knows that women’s roles are changing in modern societies and that women have been entering the market labor force in increasing numbers. What we don’t know is how to assimilate all of these social changes into the basic models of our culture. In this chapter the author discusses reproduction, a process taken for granted by the formulators of social-contract theory as women were assumed to be restricted to the reproductive functions. Burggraf argues that the process of reproduction is still conspicuously missing from most discussions of economic affairs, and looks at the changing roles for women in relationship to a changing role for family. This chapter concludes with a discussion of “family values” and economics, suggesting a way of assimilating the family’s role into the basic models of our political and economic culture.
