Family resources and family dynamics

Utilizing longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), this article examines the relationship between parental wealth and intergenerational income mobility for black and white families. I find that total parental wealth promotes upward mobility for low-income white families, but does not protect against downward mobility for white families from the top half of the income distribution. Conversely, I find that total parental wealth does not assist low-income black families while home ownership may have negative associations with the likelihood of upward mobility for these families. However, for black families from the top half of the income distribution home equity is protective against downward mobility suggesting a heterogeneous relationship between home ownership and mobility for black families.

The analysis is based on register data comprising all Norwegian married and cohabiting couples whose first common child was born in the period 1987 – 2001. We analyze the sharing of breadwinning responsibilities within the couple at three stages of the family cycle: the year the first common child was born, two years after and six years after. We define the following four groups of breadwinning models: I Traditional (mother’s income amounts to 35 percent or less of father’s income), II “Equality light” (mother’s income amounts to between 35 and 80 percent of father’s income), III Equal (mother’s income amounts to between 80 and 120 percent of father’s income) and IV Untraditional (mother’s income amounts to more than 120 percent of father’s income, including couples where father’s income = 0). We investigate to what extent the couples’ distribution on breadwinning models are influenced by socioeconomic resources, defined as couple’s education (combined classification) and father’s income, marital status (married or cohabiting), as well as family changes after the initial year – like additional children born and transition to marriage for cohabitants. We also include several demographic variables as control variables.

Family diversity and inequality: The Canadian case

The Second Demographic Transition, including flexibility in types of unions and in entry and exit from unions, has increased the diversity across families. There has been a significant cultural and political dynamic to celebrate this diversity as an increase in individual options, beyond the heterosexual couples with children in a traditional division of labour.

Diversity can be expressed in various ways: economic families or unattached individuals, married or common law, two parents or lone parent, opposite sex or same sex, breadwinner or two earners, traditional division of work and care or collaborative model, couples with and without children, intact or step-families (simple or complex).

On the basis of Canadian data from 1981 to 2011, this paper investigates the extent to which the greater diversity can be seen as representing risks and inequality across families and individuals. There has also been an increased difficulty for policy to support individuals and families that are so diverse in their family life course and in their needs.

This study investigates whether the different circumstances of parenthood that adoptive parents and biological parents encounter lead to different divorce risks. An adoption involves a large emotional and economic investment, and the potential parents undergo an arduous investigation for approval to adopt by the social authorities. Other stressful factors might be the child’s attachment to the new parents, and the child’s development in school, which has been shown to lag behind other children of the same age. Such tensions could increase the divorce risk. However, a gender equal parenthood with involvement from both parents has the potential to decrease this risk. We will study this question in Sweden, a country with a relatively high rate of divorce, strong gender equality norms, as well as a high proportion of internationally adopted children. The study makes use of administrative register data that covers the entire Swedish population over the period 1993-2007. The divorce risk will be investigated with event history analysis. By adjusting for factors shown to correlate with divorce risks we will be able to draw conclusions about the interrelationship between the different circumstances of parenthood for these two groups of parents, gender equal parenthood, and divorce risk.

Households transfer substantial wealth between generations under various motives. Apart from life cycle consumption smoothing and old age security purposes, parents transfer wealth to children with motivations of altruism, exchange, strategic or risk sharing. Theoretically, altruism predicts a one to one correspondence between parental income and child income. Under exchange, transfer is positively related to the services provided by the child. When strategic motive is operative, the ex ante transfer is motivated by the services provided by each child. This paper empirically examines the transfer motives in India using a 2006-07 primary data from 315 urban households. The decision on transfer is estimated by Probit equation and the size of transfer is estimated by Tobit equation with parental and child characteristics. The estimated results show that the basic motivation for transfer is one of exchange. Indian households exchange wealth largely for the support and services provided by the children.