Raising Children to Work Hard: Altruism, Work Norms and Social Insurance

Children who can count on support from altruistic parents may not try hard to succeed in the labor market. Moreover, parental altruism makes withdrawal of such support non-credible. To promote work effort, parents may want to instill norms which later cause their children to experience guilt or shame associated with failure to support themselves. While social insurance pools risk across families, we show that it also creates a free-rider problem among parents in terms of norm formation. We also examine the formation of norms requiring children to support their parents financially in old age.

[1]  A. Stutzer,et al.  The Role of Social Work Norms in Job Searching and Subjective Well-Being , 2003, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[2]  WELFARE AND EMPLOYMENT IN A UNITED EUROPE Giuseppe Bertola, Tito Boeri and Giuseppe Nicoletti (ur.), The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti, 2001., str. 291. , 2003 .

[3]  Andrew E. Clark,et al.  Unemployment as a Social Norm: Psychological Evidence from Panel Data , 2003, Journal of Labor Economics.

[4]  J. Weibull,et al.  Social Norms and Welfare State Dynamics , 2003, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[5]  U. Leviatan.  IS IT THE END OF UTOPIA? THE ISRAELI KIBBUTZ AT THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY , 2003 .

[6]  David Laibson,et al.  Intertemporal Decision Making , 2003 .

[7]  P. Frijters,et al.  The Economic Motives for Child Allowances: Altruism, Exchange or Value of Independence? , 2002 .

[8]  U. Fischbacher,et al.  Strong reciprocity, human cooperation, and the enforcement of social norms , 2002, Human nature.

[9]  E. Fehr,et al.  Altruistic punishment in humans , 2002, Nature.

[10]  Maria Saez-Marti,et al.  Visible . A Service of zbw , 2001 .

[11]  Herbert Gintis,et al.  Reciprocity and the Welfare State , 2004 .

[12]  Bruce A. Weinberg.  An Incentive Model of the Effect of Parental Income on Children , 2001, Journal of Political Economy.

[13]  Miles Corak,et al.  Intergenerational Influences on the Receipt of Unemployment Insurance in Canada and Sweden , 2000, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[14]  O. Sjöberg.  Duties in the welfare state : working and paying for social rights , 2000 .

[15]  M. Bornstein,et al.  Contemporary research on parenting , 2000 .

[16]  I. Montanari.  Social citizenship and work in welfare states : comparative studies on convergence and on gender , 2000 .

[17]  R. Gatti.  Family Altruism and Incentives , 1999 .

[18]  Sten Nyberg,et al.  Social Norms and Economic Incentives in the Welfare State , 1999 .

[19]  Eero Carroll,et al.  Emergence and structuring of social insurance institutions : comparative studies on social policy and unemployment insurance , 1999 .

[20]  Alberto Bisin,et al.  On the cultural transmission of preferences for social status , 1998 .

[21]  Casey B. Mulligan,et al.  Parental Priorities and Economic Inequality , 1998 .

[22]  Jacquelynne S. Eccles,et al.  Motivation to succeed. , 1998 .

[23]  R. Cialdini,et al.  Social influence: Social norms, conformity and compliance. , 1998 .

[24]  Avner Ben-Ner,et al.  Economics, Values, and Organization , 1998 .

[25]  R. Inglehart,et al.  Human Values and Beliefs: A Cross-Cultural Sourcebook , 1998 .

[26]  Laurence J. Kotlikoff,et al.  Parental Altruism and Inter Vivos Transfers: Theory and Evidence , 1995, Journal of Political Economy.

[27]  Joan E. Grusec,et al.  Parenting and children's internalization of values : a handbook of contemporary theory , 1997 .

[28]  Gary S. Becker,et al.  Accounting for Tastes , 1997 .

[29]  P. Levine,et al.  The Intergenerational Correlation in Afdc Participation: Welfare Trap or Poverty Trap? , 1996 .

[30]  A. Lindbeck.  Hazardous Welfare-State Dynamics , 1995 .

[31]  Casey B. Mulligan,et al.  The Endogenous Determination of Time Preference , 1997 .

[32]  Robert A. Moffitt,et al.  Welfare Dependence: Concepts, Measures, and Trends , 1994 .

[33]  G. Becker,et al.  Nobel Lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior , 1993, Journal of Political Economy.

[34]  J. Antel.  The Intergenerational Transfer of Welfare Dependency: Some Statistical Evidence , 1992 .

[35]  M. Rank,et al.  Inter-vivos Transfers and Intergenerational Exchange , 1992 .

[36]  Michihiro Kandori.  Social Norms and Community Enforcement , 1992 .

[37]  A. Furnham.  The Protestant Work Ethic. The Psychology of Work-Related Beliefs and Behaviours , 1990 .

[38]  Michael Waldman,et al.  The Rotten-Kid Theorem Meets the Samaritan's Dilemma , 1990 .

[39]  T. Bergstrom.  A Fresh Look at the Rotten Kid Theorem--and Other Household Mysteries , 1989, Journal of Political Economy.

[40]  J. Weibull,et al.  Altruism and Time Consistency: The Economics of Fait Accompli , 1988, Journal of Political Economy.

[41]  B. C. Rollins,et al.  Parent-Child Socialization , 1987 .

[42]  R. Axelrod.  An Evolutionary Approach to Norms , 1986, American Political Science Review.

[43]  Robert A. Moffitt,et al.  An Economic Model of Welfare Stigma , 1983 .

[44]  E. Maccoby,et al.  Socialization In The Context Of The Family: Parent-Child Interaction , 1983 .

[45]  A. Furnham.  The Protestant work ethic and attitudes towards unemployment , 1982 .

[46]  L. Rainwater.  Stigma in Income-Tested Programs , 1982 .

[47]  B. C. Rollins,et al.  Parental support, power, and control techniques in the socialization of children , 1979 .

[48]  P. Horan,et al.  The Social Bases of Welfare Stigma , 1974 .

[49]  G. Becker,et al.  A Theory of Social Interactions , 1974, Journal of Political Economy.

[50]  M. Kohn.  Class and conformity : a study in values , 1970 .

[51]  Harry J. Crockett,et al.  The Achieving Society. By David C. McClelland. Princeton, New Jersey: Van Nostrand, 1961. 512 pp , 1962 .

[52]  Robert C. Davis,et al.  The Achieving Society , 1962 .