Private transfers to parents from their genetically related and nongenetically related children

Abstract

Ageing populations in Europe are facing opportunities, but also threats, such as insufficient provision of care to the elderly. Private transfers, that is, transfers that do not involve any public institutions, are one solution to this problem. In this paper, the hypothesis on altruistic transfers within families is investigated. We distinguish families with all children being genetically related to parents and families with at least one child nongenetically related to parents. We test whether the two types of families differ with respect to private transfers between parents and children. We examine a sample of parents aged 50+ in Europe. Our findings show that parents with a nongenetically related child are less likely to receive financial transfers from children than parents with all children genetically related. However, once a financial transfer from children to parents is made, its value does not differ between parents with and without a nongenetically related child.