Time, Money, and Parenthood in the United States: How (Grand-)Parent to Adult Children Transfers Shape the Transition to Parenthood

Roberta Rutigliano, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Léa Pessin , CREST/ENSAE
Marina Potter, Pennsylvania State University

Parental support and downward intergenerational transfers have always been important for adult children’s life outcomes. The existing literature about the influence of parental support on adult children’s entry into parenthood focuses mainly on grandparental childcare provision. However, the bulk of parental help, both in-time and financial, remains ignored if we only consider grandparental childcare provisions as a form of support which might influence fertility decisions. Furthermore, because of data limitations, most of studies only consider intergenerational transfers from one side of the family (parents vs in-laws). In this study, we overcome these limitations by using rich data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We combine family structure and transfers information from the PSID sub-study “Roster and Family Transfers” with adult children’s characteristics and fertility outcome from the PSID main data. We assess the importance of parental help for the adult children’s transition into parenthood. We define parental support as any type of both in-time and money transfer to measure both direct and indirect (grand)parental support. Results will show how variation in the two types of transfers shape adult children’s transition to parenthood in the United States.

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 Presented in Session 54. Intergenerational Spillover Effects