49 pages • 1-hour read
SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
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Introduction-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction Summary: “Putting the Freak in Economics”
Content Warning: SuperFreakonomics includes discussions of sensitive topics such as sex work, suicide bombings, maternal mortality, climate disaster, and public health crises.
The introduction begins by covering the lesser-known peril of “walking drunk.” Though most people are aware of the danger of driving drunk, the individual risks of drunk driving are lower compared to drunk walking. This example is used to show the sometimes unexpected factors that play into microeconomics, the chosen field of the two authors. In a vacuum, the best decision a drunk person could make would be to drive home instead of walking. However, because no one exists in a vacuum, the risks to others in driving drunk compel people to choose to walk instead.
Next, the introduction widens the focus to point out the global plight of women, specifically in India. Many factors interact to create massive gender inequity in India, including poverty, sexism, high birthrates, and domestic violence. However, this situation has been improving due to the influence of television. The authors observe that as televisions become more commonly available in rural Indian communities, women gain access to examples of more equitable societies and therefore become less willing to tolerate violence or have a large number of children.
Further examples are utilized to illustrate the main purpose of this book and its prequel, Freakonomics. For instance, the authors discuss the plight of large American cities in the early 1900s and the mountains of horse manure that polluted these cities, and they also touch upon the unfair malignment of sharks as huge dangers to humans, given that elephants kill many more people than sharks do every year. Instead of visualizing economics as a set system of human behaviors, Levitt and Dubner endorse “the economic approach”(12), which assumes that human beings do what they do because of multiple interwoven factors (e.g., selfishness, empathy, curiosity, fear, and social pressure). The authors contend that human beings rarely make decisions based on one factor, and they also observe that the factors that contribute to individuals’ decisions are often counterintuitive. These small, unexpected factors form the basis of Levitt and Dubner’s mutual field of what they call “freakonomics.” Because of this, the authors warn that they will not discuss macroeconomic issues, and they admit that their theories will most likely spark disagreement from some readers.
Chapter 1 Summary: “How Is a Street Prostitute Like a Department-Store Santa?”
Chapter 1 begins by introducing LaSheena, a part-time sex worker whose poverty induces her to sell sex in addition to working other jobs (such as cutting hair) and committing crimes like shoplifting. Her story illustrates one of the main theses of this chapter: that throughout history, by any significant measure, “women have had it rougher than men” (20). The authors cite foot-binding, female infanticide, and witch hunts and go on to mention discrepancies like the pervasive wage gap. They stress that women are at an economic disadvantage even after affirmative action measures like Title IX, but they contend that there is one market in which women dominate: sex work. Throughout history, women have taken advantage of the fact that men generally want more sex than they can get for free, by charging them for it. Today, sex work is mostly illegal in America, albeit with exceptions and inconsistent enforcement. It has been illegal since the early 1900s, when public outcry arose after a survey found that one out of every 50 women in their 20s was a sex worker. At that time, a woman working in a shop could only take home about $6 per week, which was equivalent to $6,500 per year in today’s money. As a sex worker, however, she could expect to earn an average of $70 per week, or $76,000 per year in today’s money. The most expensive and exclusive sex workers earned much more. Chicago’s Everleigh Club, a luxurious brothel, paid its workers as much as $400 a week. The authors use this significant discrepancy to explain the economic principle of supply and demand. They explain that sex work, being largely illegal, is more expensive because of the risk and because suppliers are often forced out of the market by authorities. The scarcity of suppliers means that sex workers can raise their prices, since the demand for sex remains the same regardless of the number of suppliers available.
The authors then introduce Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociologist at Columbia University. His research was used in the first Freakonomics book to describe the economic motivations of drug dealers. He also created a revolutionary survey for sex workers on the South Side of Chicago, which, over two years, provided a wealth of data about one of the least researched professions in modern society. He found that the average Chicago sex worker sells sex for about 13 hours a week, performing an average of 10 sex acts per week at about $27 an hour. Almost all of them worked other jobs, but sex work paid four times more than any of the others. However, it was also much more dangerous, resulting in almost a dozen acts of violence in a year for each worker.
These sex workers’ wages, coming out to about $350 a week, does not even come close to the exorbitant salary earned by a sex worker in Chicago in the early 1900s. To address the question of why sex work has lost value, Levitt and Dubner point out that many more women are now willing to have sex for free. Improvements in birth control options combined with less stigma for premarital sex means that men have many more options for finding sex besides getting married or hiring a sex worker: the two main options that existed in 1910. Now, the authors contend that men are more likely to hire a sex worker in order to fulfill acts that their female partners are unwilling to perform, such as oral or anal sex.
Other aspects of the highly complex sex work trade are explored, such as the impact for sex workers of having a pimp versus negotiating with clients on their own. The authors also address the seasonal fluctuations in sex work demand. Having a pimp means that a sex worker has to forfeit a share of their money, but they also no longer have to find their own clients and are often safer and better paid. Many workers find that the ease justifies the expense. The existence of seasonal rises in demand also answers the question posed by the chapter title: “How is a street prostitute like a department store Santa?” Many sex workers work other jobs throughout the year, but during the holidays, when demand for sex workers rises, they focus on sex work and take all the clients they can reasonably handle.
The chapter concludes by introducing Allie, a woman who reached out to the authors after learning from a client that they were studying sex work. Originally a computer programmer who trained in the military, Allie found herself turning to sex work not out of desperation, but out of curiosity. She found that she was able to work less than 15 hours a week and make four times her previous yearly salary as a programmer. The advent of the internet and her own proficiency with it meant that she could act as her own pimp and keep all of her money, while still staying safe. She offered a high-scale “girlfriend experience,” in which she charged 100s of dollars an hour to act like a perfect female partner. She found that she could raise her rates from $300 to eventually $500 an hour with no decrease in demand. In fact, she found that the more she raised her rates, the more time the client was likely to book with her. She left sex work after setting herself up for life, choosing to leave before demand dropped off due to her advancing age.
Introduction-Chapter 1 Analysis
Throughout the text, the author’s focus extensively upon demonstrating The Hidden Incentives Behind Human Behavior, and this issue is woven throughout the introduction and Chapter 1. The introduction’s discussion of drunk walking versus drunk driving is a quintessential example. The analysis reveals that individual self-interest—avoiding legal trouble or causing harm to others—compels people to walk while intoxicated, even though doing so poses a greater personal risk than driving. This paradox highlights the fact that external societal incentives (such as legal consequences and moral responsibility) influence personal decisions in ways that may not be immediately apparent. Similarly, in Chapter 1, the motivations of sex workers are explained in order to illustrate hidden economic and social incentives. Specifically, LaSheena’s story showcases the ways in which poverty drives individuals to pursue high-risk, high-reward professions like sex work.
However, the authors’ comparison between historical and modern sex work reveals a shift in incentives: whereas early 20th-century sex workers earned substantial incomes due to societal restrictions on women’s sexual freedom, modern sex workers face lower earnings because of reduced social stigma around premarital sex and improved contraceptives. The authors cite these contrasting examples in order to stress the idea that changes in the societal context, combined with economic principles like supply and demand, inevitably alter individual incentives and reshape collective behaviors over time.
Even Allie’s decision to enter and exit the sex industry highlights the effects of hidden incentives, for her background in computer programming allowed her to leverage technology, act independently, and maximize earnings while maintaining safety. Unlike LaSheena, Allie was not driven by financial desperation but by curiosity and a desire for autonomy. This distinction underscores the fact that incentives are not always monetary; they can also stem from personal goals or a desire for freedom and control.
In addition to examining hidden incentives on an individual level, Levitt and Dubner’s work also emphasizes The Role of Data and Economic Principles in Understanding Societal Issues. To this end, the introduction uses data to challenge conventional wisdom, illustrating that walking drunk is statistically more dangerous for the individual than driving drunk would be. The authors cite this example to suggest that raw data can defy intuitive assumptions; their goal is to advocate for a reevaluation of the conventional assumptions surrounding risk-taking and decision-making.
To further demonstrates the benefits of employing disciplined, data-driven analyses to arrive at fresh conclusions, the authors conduct a detailed analysis of sex work in Chapter 1, heavily relying on data from Sudhir Venkatesh’s surveys of Chicago sex workers. Venkatesh’s findings offer an unprecedented look at the economics of sex work, including earnings, hours worked, and the dangers faced by sex workers. For instance, his research reveals that while sex work pays significantly more than other jobs, it also involves a high risk of violence—around 12 incidents annually per worker. By quantifying these risks and rewards, the authors demonstrate that data can be used to demystify a stigmatized and under-researched industry.
The authors also rely upon economic principles to explain the existing trends in sex work, using the concept of supply and demand to elucidate why sex work was far more lucrative in the early 20th century than it is today. They explain that with fewer women available for casual sex in 1910 due to societal norms, the demand for sex workers was high, enabling such workers to command premium prices. Modern shifts in societal behavior, including greater sexual freedom and contraceptive access, have increased the supply of free sexual encounters, reducing demand and wages for sex workers. This application of economic theory provides a real-world example of the ways in which abstract principles operate in real-world contexts.
The authors frequently advocate for the Application of Unconventional Solutions to Global Challenges, and the example of television improving the status of women in rural India is a particularly pointed illustration of this approach. While traditional methods of mitigating gender inequality often focus on policy changes or direct aid, the spread of television demonstrates how cultural exposure can drive social change. By showcasing examples of empowered women in more equitable societies, television challenges entrenched norms, empowering women to resist violence and embrace family planning. This indirect but effective solution exemplifies how creative, data-driven approaches can address systemic problems.
Chapter 1’s exploration of modern sex work also highlights unconventional solutions. For instance, Allie’s use of the internet to bypass traditional pimps and manage her own business demonstrates that technology can empower individuals in marginalized professions. Her ability to raise her rates while maintaining demand by offering a personalized “girlfriend experience” shows that understanding consumer behavior can lead to better outcomes for service providers. This approach is particularly relevant in an industry that is often characterized by exploitation and danger, and the authors’ argument suggests that technological innovation can provide safer and more lucrative opportunities for workers.
The authors’ unconventional thinking can also be seen in their comparison of seasonal trends in sex work to the demand for department store Santas. By applying economic principles to an unlikely pairing, they reveal that similar patterns of consumer demand operate across vastly different industries. This insight advocates for viewing societal challenges through a broader lens in order to identify parallels and solutions that might not be immediately obvious. In the introduction and first chapter, Levitt and Dubner consistently question assumptions and advance critical analyses of both individual human behavior and societal issues. By uncovering the hidden factors in decision-making, leveraging data to illuminate complex problems, and proposing innovative solutions, they emphasize the importance of adopting a fresh, “freakonomic” perspective on the world.
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