Training, Trading or Taking? Parents’ Work, Children’s Work and Intergenerational Transfers

Jennifer L. Romich, University of Washington

Research on parental employment and child well-being generally focuses on the relationship between parents’ work and available financial resources for parents to transfer to children. However, children of working parents may provide valuable resources to their households as well in the form of household labor including sibling care. Using child- and household-level data from families with 12-18-year-olds in the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I examine the relationship between parental employment, children’s household work and transfers to children. I hypothesize that being in a household in which all parents work increases the likelihood that a child provides household labor and receives direct financial transfers in the form of allowances or pocket money. The relationship is stronger in households with younger siblings. Interactions with child gender are investigated and implications for child well-being are discussed.