The prodigal son: does the younger brother always care for his parentsin old age?

ABSTRACT

Studies have shown that the older sibling often chooses to live away from his elderly parents intending to free ride on the care provided by the younger child. In the presented model, we incorporate income effects and depict a different pattern frequently observed in Eastern countries; that is, the older sibling lives near his or her parents and takes care of them in old age. By generalizing the existing model, we show three cases of elderly parents being looked after by (i) the older sibling, (ii) the younger sibling, and (iii) both siblings, depending on the relative magnitude of the income effect and the strategic incentive for one sibling to free ride on the other. Our study also investigates the effect of changes in relative income on the level of total care received by parents.

KEYWORDS:

• Location choice
• Sibling
• Elderly care arrangement
• Income gap

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• H41
• J14

Acknowledgements

This study is conducted as part of the project ‘A Socioeconomic Analysis of Households in Environments Characterized by Aging Population and Low Birth Rates’, undertaken at Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI). The authors are grateful to Shinichiro Iwata, Keisuke Kawata, Kazutoshi Miyazawa, Sayaka Nakamura, Takashi Unayama, and all participants of the conferences and seminars at Nagoya Univ., Sun Yat-Sen Univ., Seoul National Univ., Freiburg Univ., Hiroshima Univ., Meijo Univ., RIETI, ARSC, Housing Research & Advancement Foundation of Japan, and the North American meetings of the RSAI for their constructive comments and suggestions. The research has also been supported by grants from the JSPS (nos. 25245042 and 15K17074) and Kampo Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ At that time, he knew that he was supposed to receive only half of what the older sibling would do (Deuteronomy 21:17).

² In a recent article, Maruyama and Johar (2013) quantify Konrad et al’s. (2002) model, to find a moderate altruism and cooperation between siblings in the United States. Extending Konrad et al. model, Kureishi and Wakabayashi (2010) show that the firstborn child tends to live with his parents in return for having received childcare assistance from his parents. Pezzin, Pollak, and Schone (2015) also give an interesting example where the distance from parents affects the care arrangement. They present a model in which every child avoids to live with his or her parents since they know that once they decide to live with their parents, they would have to take the entire responsibility of caregiving.

³ Other possible explanations for caregiving by firstborn child include Cox’s (1987) exchange model and Chu’s (1991) dynasty model.

⁴ For an excellent survey on intergenerational transfer from children to parents, see Maruyama and Nakamura (2012).

⁵ If we allow for both male and female siblings, our results could change by the additional effects of different productivity in domestic work, including caregiving, or different opportunity cost due to gender wage gap. Some empirical studies explore the children’s gender difference effects on care arrangement.

⁶ We exclude $p>t_i>t_k$ and $p<t_i<t_k$ ($i,k=1,2$), which are inconsistent with the utility maximization by parents.

⁷ Reiner and Sielder (2009) also present an insightful model where the siblings negotiate at the fourth stage of care provision and their choice of employment and location affect their bargaining power.

⁸ For the proof, see Komura and Ogawa (2015).

⁹ For instance, the ratio for the firstborn son who married during the period 1985–1987 was 35.3% and that for others remained 23.0%. In the case of single child, the ratio that the child who married during 1955–1959 lived with his/her parents was 45.0%, which has consistently declined to 25.0% in 1985–1987.

¹⁰ Yasuda (2008) is a report on a large research survey held by Japan Society of Family Sociology in 2004. This targeted the Japanese citizens living in Japan and born in 1926–1975, the period often used in analysis to understand Japanese families.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (nos. 25245042 and 15K17074) and Kampo Foundation.