The Family as a Socioeconomic Management System

Abstract

The family is a social miniscule in every culture. It is a central theme of gender-development issue. As such it has a distinct and abiding effect on the nature of the socioeconomic order in terms of preference formation relating to the kinds of artifacts that get exchanged and thus play a key role in socioeconomic development. The totality of these issues comprises the study of the family as a socioeconomic management system. The intergenerational interaction and co-evolution of the family in concert with the social complex is differently explainable in neoclassical economic and Islamic contexts. Consequently, the triangular circular interrelationships between the individual, the household and the socioeconomic order leave different effects in the above two paradigms. These in turn have profound influence on the future of socioeconomic development according to these paradigms. This paper formalizes an interrelationship between the inter-generational family and the socioeconomic order using the concept of circular causation of unity of knowledge in Islam and the methodological individualism in neoclassical economic theory. The inter temporal context of the theme is included with family extensions and their socioeconomic effects over populations of grandfathers and grandchildren.   Keywords: Microeconomics of family, socioeconomic management system, inter-generational endogenous preferences, culture and political economy.