People Face Trade-Offs

People deal with plenty of choices in their everyday lives. At the moment we open our eyes, we have to make decisions. For instance, should we get up and prepare ourselves for a new day, or should we continue resting in our beds? Even after when we have made this decision, we will still face choices after choices. However, we cannot get all the things we want as according to Mankiw, scarcity exists in our society. In other words, scarcity means that society has limited resources and therefore cannot produce all the goods and services people wish to have. To get one thing that we like, we usually have to give up other things that we like. Making decisions require trading off one goal against another. This phenomenon is also called “trade-off”, which is the fundamental issue in economics that we always discuss. The opt-out revolution (Warner, 2003, as cited in McArdle, 2013) is a great example for trade-offs. Women nowadays study so hard at universities and subsequently obtain jobs that only a tiny handful of people can ever get. However, just to spend as much time as they could with their families, it is very common that they sacrifice their works after marriage or having a child. Nonetheless, most of them regret afterwards because re-entering workforce is too hard. The reason for this is that most companies would rather leave the opportunities for others who can contribute more to the companies than for those women who already have families. Based on the article given, we can relate some of the situations in real life regarding the principle of trade-offs. First and foremost, a woman has to discuss with her husband, who should make money for the family, and who should be responsible for household chores. Secondly, if the woman decide to work, she has to decide how many hours she should spend on working, and how many hours with family. Thirdly, at a company’s point of view, the manager has to decide whether to hire the woman or not, comparing to other