No free lunch, Buddy: past housing transfers and informal care later in life

Emanuele Ciani and Claudio Deiana ()

No 1117, Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: Previous empirical literature on the relationship between intergenerational transfers of assets and services has mostly focused on contemporary exchanges. In contrast, we provide novel evidence that parents who helped their adult children in the past are rewarded by a greater likelihood of receiving informal care later in life. To this end we use Italian data to look at retrospective information about how parents help their children to purchase houses when they get married. Our estimates show a positive association with the current provision of informal care, which is robust to controlling for a large set of individual and family characteristics. We provide evidence that this can be explained by various self-interest motives, relating to theories based either on bilateral exchange or on the presence of a third generation of grandchildren, such as those including a demonstration effect or the concept of a family constitution.

Keywords: informal care; housing; intergenerational transfers; geographical proximity. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 J13 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-dem, nep-eur, nep-hea and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: No free lunch, buddy: past housing transfers and informal care later in life (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_1117_17

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