Bequest Division: The Roles of Parental Motives and Children’s Gender Composition

Warn N. Lekfuangfu (), Javier Olivera () and Philippe Van Kerm
Additional contact information
Warn N. Lekfuangfu: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Javier Olivera: National Bank of Belgium

No 17833, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Drawing on two data sources from across Europe, we show that both bequest motives of parents and children’s gender composition shape unequal divisions of bequests. First, the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe reveals that observed bequests are divided unequally when children differ in sex, caregiving, or income, with bequest motives strongest among mixed-sex children. Second, in a vignette experiment featuring alternative bequest motive scenarios and randomised gender compositions for two fictitious children, hypothetical bequests are most unequally divided under the exchange motive while children’s gender composition matters more under the altruistic motive. Fictitious parents favour daughters regardless of deservingness, granting the highest bequest share to a deserving daughter with a brother. In return, these patterns reinforce traditional gender norms.

Keywords: altruism; deservingness; vignette experiment; gender; intergenerational transfers; bequest; exchange; Europe; HFCS; SHARE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 E62 H24 H53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-eur, nep-exp, nep-gen, nep-hea and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp17833.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Bequest Division: The Roles of Parental Motives and Children’s Gender Composition (2025)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17833

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().