Intergenerational Transfers and Labor Supply: Preliminary Evidence from the HRS

The HRS data permit more expansive examination of ties between market work and family than heretofore possible. This research focuses on inter-vivos transfers to adult children and how they relate to the labor supply of middle-age married women. The data show a notable and complex association in which the direction of the association varies by type of transfer. The results of our reduced-form, bivariate TOBIT analysis also indicate that the value of correlations between labor supply and transfers imputed for the underlying latent variables tend to be twice the value of the simple correlations. Overall results of the analysis are supportive of the theoretical framework we develop that depicts unanticipated luck and orientation toward giving as important forces in transfers to children.

Transfers/Labor Supply

6504