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Download or read book Intergenerational Exchanges and Economic Security written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: Scholars have shown that intergenerational transfers positively affect the recipient's wealth. However, no one had considered how these types of transfers affect the wealth of the donor. The purpose of my dissertation was to determine if parents compromise their own economic well-being as a result of having children and engaging in financial transfers to them. I defined economic well-being as overall net worth, financial assets, and housing net worth. Financial transfers to children are defined as investments in children's education. By examining the effects of a relatively common and discretionary transfer to children, we gain a broad understanding of the effects of transfers on wealth, a previously overlooked topic in the sociology of wealth. I use the Health and Retirement Survey (1992), a nationally representative biennial longitudinal survey of person born between 1931 and 1941, to examine these relationships. Comparing wealth outcomes for households with and without children I was able to demonstrate that there are no long-term negative financial consequences associated with having children. Shifting the focus to differences among parents in their level of financial support of their children, I found that investing in children's education has positive effects on overall net worth and housing net worth. Finally, I examined these relationships separately for white, black, and Hispanic households in order to determine if there were racial or ethnic differences in the effects of having children and investing in their children's education on wealth. I found that while there were no substantive differences in the effects of having children on wealth by race or ethnicity, there differences in the effects of educational expenditures.