INTERGENERATIONAL HELP AND PUBLIC ASSISTANCE IN EUROPE

ABSTRACT

The comparative analysis of intergenerational support patterns based on SHARE, the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe, with about 30,000 respondents from 11 European countries reveals a distinct geographical distribution of private support patterns: in Northern Europe help between parents and children is very common, but typically little time-consuming. The contrary is true for Southern Europe, where comparably few support relations are very intense in terms of time. Central Western Europe lies in-between with average transfer rates and intensities. Using multilevel modeling, these different support patterns can be explained by the prevalence of public assistance according to the specialization hypothesis: with increased public transfers and social services, sporadic help is more likely (crowding in), and less time consuming support between generations (crowding out) occurs. Accordingly, most support is provided voluntarily in Northern Europe, whereas it is more often perceived as obligatory in Continental and Mediterranean countries.

Keywords:

• generations
• social policy
• support
• welfare state

Acknowledgements

This paper uses data from release 2 of SHARE 2004. The SHARE data collection has been primarily funded by the European Commission through the 5th framework program (project QLK6-CT-2001-00360 in the thematic program Quality of Life). Additional funding came from the US National Institute on Ageing (U01 AG09740-13S2, P01 AG005842, P01 AG08291, P30 AG12815, Y1-AG-4553-01 and OGHA 04-064). Data collection in Austria (through the Austrian Science Foundation, FWF), Belgium (through the Belgian Science Policy Office) and Switzerland (through BBW/OFES/UFES) was nationally funded. The SHARE data collection in Israel was funded by the US National Institute on Aging (R21 AG025169), by the German–Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (G.I.F.), and by the National Insurance Institute of Israel. Further support by the European Commission through the 6th framework program (projects SHARE-I3, RII-CT-2006-062193, and COMPARE, CIT5-CT-2005-028857) is gratefully acknowledged. For methodological details see Börsch-Supan and Jürges (2005).

Notes

¹The sample characteristics are included in Appendix Tables A1, A2, and A3.

²The focus is not the ‘sandwich’ or ‘pivot’ position of the respondents (see e.g., Grundy and Henretta 2006), but intergenerational relations between different cohorts in Europe.

³The results are interpreted with caution as the paper questionnaire reached substantially lower response rates than the main CAPI survey.

⁴To receive the ‘net correlations’ in squared brackets, single country models including mean centered variables have been estimated to assess the baseline help levels in each country.

⁵The complete analyses can be retrieved from the author by request.

⁶The same results emerge if the average help intensity in a country is measured as the fraction of daily help.

⁷As respondents were able to indicate both motives simultaneously, the different balances should not (only) be due to different cultural norms and answering behaviors.