To the excent that the higher earnings of college graduates  reflects their greater ability rather than schooling,the rate of return is overstated.
Omission of ability biases the rate of return estimates by a small amount.
The screening hypothesis argues that schooling increases earnings not by increaing productivity but providing a way to identify high quality workers.


A more sontroversial issue was Becker"s conclusion that parents often act altruistically towards selfish children by highly investing in a child in an effort to indirectly save for old age .

Becker believed that the rate of return from investing in children was often greater than normal retirement savings.However ,parents can not know for sure that the child will take care of them .Since they cannot legally bind a child to care for them they often reasort to manipulation through instilling a sense of "guilt ,obligation ,duty ,and filial love that indirectly ,but still very effectively .......commits children to helping them out ."Becker even went so far as to say that social security can cause families to be less interdependent by removing the motivation of parents to use altruistic behaviors in motivating their children to care for them.