Parental marital disruption and intergenerational transfers: An analysis of lone elderly parents and their children

Although one of the most marked demographic trends observed over the twentieth century is the increased rate of divorce, relatively little research has explored the effects of these changing marital patterns in the context of an aging society. Using a sample of lone elderly parents and their adult children, we analyze the direct and indirect effects of marital disruption on four important dimensions of intergenerational transfers: coresidence, financial assistance, adult children's provision of informal care, and parental purchase of paid care. Our findings suggest that divorce has deleterious effects on intergenerational transfers, particularly for elderly fathers. Remarriage further reduces exchange. Our results reveal that parents engage in lower levels of transfers with stepchildren relative to biological children. Moreover, intergenerational transfers are sensitive to characteristics of biological children but not to those of stepchildren. Taken together, these results suggest that exchange at the end of the life course continues to be adversely affected by marital disruption.     

Self-interest and altruism in intergenerational relations

Self-interest and altruism in the relationships between generations can be manifested both within the family and in the public arena. The present study compares levels of support between age groups 40-49,50-59, 60-69, 70-79, and 80+ on a series of attitudes about “appropriate” parent-child relations and governmental programs for older people. On both kinds of measures, older people tend consistently to be least likely to adopt the “pro-elderly” position. This association is maintained when controls are introduced in multivariate analyses. Altruism, not self-interest, seems to govern the attitudes of the older generation in this sample. This finding should mitigate potential conflicts over issues of intergenerational equity and fairness, both within the family and in public policy.     

Trends in the intergenerational transmission of divorce

I use data from the 1973-1996 NORC General Social Survey to examine trends in the intergenerational transmission of divorce, the propensity for the children of divorce to end their own marriages. The rate of divorce transmission declined by almost 50% in the study period. This result was essentially unchanged by statistical controls for various personal and family background differences between respondents.     

No trend in the intergenerational transmission of divorce

Previous studies on trends in the intergenerational transmission of divorce have produced mixed findings, with two studies (McLanahan and Bumpass 1988; Teachman 2002) reporting no trend in divorce transmission and one study (Wolfinger 1999) finding that divorce transmission has weakened substantially. Using a stratified Cox proportional hazard model, we analyze data from the National Survey of Families and Households and find no evidence for any trend in divorce transmission. To reconcile apparent differences in results, we note that the General Social Survey data used by Wolfinger lack information on marital duration, permitting analysis only for whether respondents have divorced by interview. As a result, an apparent decline in divorce transmission could be due to inadequate adjustments for the longer exposures to risk by earlier marriage cohorts, yielding a higher probability of divorce by interview for earlier cohorts relative to more recent cohorts even if divorce risks are identical across all marriage cohorts. We confirm this possibility by using a series of discrete-time hazard logistic regressions to investigate the sensitivity of estimates of trends in divorce transmission to different adjustments for exposure to risk. We conclude that there has been no trend in the intergenerational transmission of divorce.     

影响北京市女儿养老支持作用的因素分析

随着北京市人口的急速老龄化,养老问题对传统的家庭养老体系构成巨大的挑战,提倡和鼓励女儿养老的呼声越来越高。通过北京市老年人调查数据发现,在经济帮助、生活照料、心理慰藉三个方面,女儿都为老年人提供了重要的支持作用。宏观角度,社会经济文化是影响女儿养老支持的大背景。微观角度,女儿和老年人自身的特征是影响女儿养老支持的重要因素。     

The intergenerational education spillovers of pension reform in China

Economic theory establishes that pension privatization weakens the link between old and young and so reduces the incentive to invest in public education in an economy with lower return rate of capital than growth rate of wage. However, empirical studies of the link change are few. In this paper, we investigate the effects of pension privatization and the central government’s subsidy to individual accounts on public education spending in a three-period overlapping generation model. And then, we take contemporary pension reforms in a number of Chinese provinces as offering natural experiment conditions. Using a difference-in-difference framework and 282 municipal districts panel data over years 1998–2009, we test the pension-education theoretical link change. Both our theoretical and empirical results confirm that pension privatization is adversely associated with local public spending on education in China. Private pension subsidies, moreover, magnify this effect. Our study supports the theoretical assertion and selective empirical findings of a negative intergenerational effect of pension privatization.     

An examination of paternal and maternal intergenerational transmission of schooling

More educated parents are observed to have better educated children. However, previous research has found conflicting results regarding the role of fathers and mothers: in most cases, a strong positive paternal effect was found with a negligible maternal effect; in fewer cases, opposite results were found. In this paper, I use a sample of Norwegian twins to evaluate the impact of sample size and sample selection on the estimates’ robustness: results concerning the effect of mother’s education are very sensitive to the sample size, while the selection of the sample seems to be a key to reconciling previous results.     

Demographics,the Third Age and partial retirement: Policy proposals to accommodate the changing picture of female retirement in Canada

Much concern has been raised around the potential impact of the retirement of the large baby boom generation. This article specifically addresses the unique issues surrounding the retirement of female baby boomers. Demographic changes, including increased labor force participation, coupled with declining fertility rates, have resulted in a social transformation of the roles women play in society. Despite these changes, women still bear much of the caregiving responsibilities in the household, which can complicate retirement choices. This article examines female retirement in the Canadian context and presents three policy proposals to expand women’s retirement choices, encourage longer-term labor force participation, and thereby extend their working lives into the Third Age.     

Social and economic change,intergenerational relationships,and family formation in Taiwan

This paper examines the influence of social change and economic growth on intergenerational relationships and the formation of families in Taiwan. Using data from two island-wide surveys in 1973 and 1980, the analysis shows that, as expected, social change has been accompanied by rapid changes in family structure and relationships, including the spread of schooling, the employment of young people outside the family, increasing separation of the residences of parents and children before and after marriage, growing independence of young people, and increases in premarital sex and pregnancies. The position of a family in the social structure also influences the way young people interact with their parents and form their own families: women with educated fathers have more nonfamilial experiences than others, and farm origins tend to exert a traditional influence on the life course. Finally, experiences early in the life course have important ramifications for later behavior and transitions.     

The study of intergenerational intimacy in North America: beyond politics and pedophilia

Intergenerational intimacy, social as well as sexual, has been studied in the United States and abroad for some time. In recent years the general trend has been to label such behavior "child sexual abuse." Interest in this type of abuse has generated a considerable amount of more or less scientific literature, some of which seems to have been produced in a "rush to judgment" attempt to build a "professional" literature that supports popular beliefs. This tradition of child-abuse-defined literature, along with the work of investigative and helping agencies which some refer to as a "child abuse industry," has fostered a one-sided, simplistic picture of intergenerational intimacy. A close look at the empirical studies in this tradition reveals flaws associated with two problems: the studies nearly always (1) maintain a narrow focus on sexual contact, and (2) proceed from the related basic assumption that sexual contact in intergenerational relationships by definition constitutes abuse. While sexual abuse certainly occurs, those who apply this assumption to all situations are ignoring empirical findings that show otherwise. Research outside the "child sexual abuse" tradition reveals a broader range of intergenerational relationships outside the family, including a number of aspects which typically are not seen when the focus is on the sexual. Some studies show clearly that even when sexual contact is involved, negative outcomes are not inevitable. This indicates the need for a much broader approach. Further research in North American society and in other cultures would help us to understand more accurately the diversity and possible benefits of intergenerational intimacy.     

The effects of ego-resilience,social support,and depression on suicidal ideation among the elderly in South Korea

South Korea’s elderly suicide rate is not merely the highest among the member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, it is the highest in the world. This study analyzed the effect of ego-resilience and social support on depression and suicidal ideation of the elderly, providing baseline data to aid in the development of preventive programs on elder suicide. We found that ego-resilience is a strong inhibitor of suicidal ideation. Direct and indirect effects of social support on suicidal ideation were especially helpful for elders with mild depression.     

The intergenerational transmission of human capital: the role of skills and health

We provide new evidence on some of the mechanisms reflected in the intergenerational transmission of human capital. Applying both an adoption and a twin design to rich data from the Swedish military enlistment, we show that greater parental education increases sons’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills, as well as their health. The estimates are in many cases similar across research designs and suggest that a substantial part of the effect of parental education on their young adult children’s human capital works through improving their skills and health.     

Of rotten kids and Rawlsian parents: The optimal timing of intergenerational transfers

This paper shows that altruistic parents with utilitarian preferences may fare better if they transfer resources to their children early in life instead of delaying the bulk of transfers until after their death. Moreover, the outcome of the analysed “family transfer game” is not Pareto-efficient in the case of bequests. However, if altruistic parents hold Rawlsian preferences, they will be indifferent between gifts and bequests, and Pareto-efficiency is always obtained. In intermediate cases of Atkinson-type welfare functions, welfare losses of bequests compared to gifts disappear as the aversion to inequality converges to infinity. Received: 3 November 1998/Accepted: 4 May 1999     

Transitions to supported environments in England and Wales among elderly widowed and divorced women: the changing balance between co-residence with family and institutional care

In this article we examine changes in the proportion of older widowed and divorced women in England and Wales moving from 'independent' to two kinds of 'supported' household--supported private households and institutions--during the decades 1971-81 and 1981-91. Our main aim was to see whether observed increases in institutionalisation over this period were the result of a decreased propensity to move to the households of relatives. We used the ONS Longitudinal Study, a record linkage study including individual level data from the 1971, 1981 and 1991 censuses of England and Wales. A multinomial logit model was used to investigate the correlates of transitions from independent to supported private households versus institutions among elderly widowed and divorced women. While the overall rate of transitions to join either supported private households or institutions was largely the same in the two decades, the balance between the two shifted markedly in favour of transitions to institutions. In terms of the limited range of covariates it was possible to consider, owner-occupiers were significantly more likely than tenants to move to supported private households than to institutions.     

The intergenerational transmission of noncognitive skills and their effect on education and employment outcomes

We use information on second-generation migrants to study the existence of a cultural component on the formation process of noncognitive skills and its effect on education and employment outcomes. Our measures of noncognitive skills include: personality traits that children are encouraged to learn at home and inherited civic capital. Individuals whose cultural heritage places a relatively higher value to independence and, in comparison, a relative lower value on child qualities positively associated with the conscientiousness personality factor, i.e. hard work and thrift, report lower education, worse occupational status and lower wages on average. Individuals with a higher inherited civic capital declare a higher educational level, but we find no effect of inherited civic capital on adult labor market outcomes.     

The intergenerational transmission of divorce in cross-national perspective: Results from the Fertility and Family Surveys

We used data on women's first marriages from the Fertility and Family Surveys to analyse the intergenerational transmission of divorce across 18 countries and to seek explanations in macro-level characteristics for the cross-national variation. Our results show that women whose parents divorced have a significantly higher risk of divorce in 17 countries. There is some cross-national variation. When compared with the USA, the association is stronger in six countries. This variation is negatively associated with the proportion of women in each cohort who experienced the divorce of their parents and with the national level of women's participation in the labour force during childhood. We conclude that differences in the contexts in which children of divorce learn marital and interpersonal behaviour affect the strength of the intergenerational transmission of divorce.     

A note on intergenerational risk sharing and the design of pay-as-you-go pension programs

Different versions of pay-as-you-go public pension programs may have entirely different effects on the intergenerational distribution of income risk. If the pension benefit is a fixed proportion of previous labor income, a pay-as-you-go program increases the net income risk of all generations. On the other hand, a pay-as-you-go program characterized by a fixed labor income tax rate and uncertain pension benefits provides intergenerational risk sharing. Received: 10 December 1996 / Accepted: 24 November 1997     

The intergenerational transmission of divorce in cross-national perspective: results from the Fertility and Family Surveys

We used data on women's first marriages from the Fertility and Family Surveys to analyse the intergenerational transmission of divorce across 18 countries and to seek explanations in macro-level characteristics for the cross-national variation. Our results show that women whose parents divorced have a significantly higher risk of divorce in 17 countries. There is some cross-national variation. When compared with the USA, the association is stronger in six countries. This variation is negatively associated with the proportion of women in each cohort who experienced the divorce of their parents and with the national level of women's participation in the labour force during childhood. We conclude that differences in the contexts in which children of divorce learn marital and interpersonal behaviour affect the strength of the intergenerational transmission of divorce.