The Family Inheritance And The Intergenerational Transmission Of Inequality

Is the United States "the land of equal opportunity" or is the playing field tilted in favor of those whose parents are wealthy, well educated, and white? If family background is important in getting ahead, why? And if the processes that transmit economic status from parent to child are unfair, could public policy address the problem? Unequal Chances provides new answers to these questions by leading economists, sociologists, biologists, behavioral geneticists, and philosophers. New estimates show that intergenerational inequality in the United States is far greater than was previously thought. Moreover, while the inheritance of wealth and the better schooling typically enjoyed by the children of the well-to-do contribute to this process, these two standard explanations fail to explain the extent of intergenerational status transmission. The genetic inheritance of IQ is even less important. Instead, parent-offspring similarities in personality and behavior may play an important role. Race contributes to the process, and the intergenerational mobility patterns of African Americans and European Americans differ substantially. Following the editors' introduction are chapters by Greg Duncan, Ariel Kalil, Susan E. Mayer, Robin Tepper, and Monique R. Payne; Bhashkar Mazumder; David J. Harding, Christopher Jencks, Leonard M. Lopoo, and Susan E. Mayer; Anders Björklund, Markus Jäntti, and Gary Solon; Tom Hertz; John C. Loehlin; Melissa Osborne Groves; Marcus W. Feldman, Shuzhuo Li, Nan Li, Shripad Tuljapurkar, and Xiaoyi Jin; and Adam Swift.

Specialists in economics, law, psychology, and sociology provide a comprehensive examination of the disposition of property following a death.

This volume is a compilation of essays by prominent economists in the area of household and family economics. The volume attempts to cover some areas in the field and focuses on topics such as income determination and the intergenerational transmission of income generation, the changing role of women in the labor force, fertility, and income tax treatment of the family. Each essay is followed by a discussion of part, or all, of its contents.

This book makes a major contribution to our understanding of 21st century families in Britain through an exploration of intergenerational relationships. Drawing on new and extensive quantitative and qualitative research, the authors explore the giving and receiving of financial gifts. Despite growing concern about intergenerational tension and even possible conflict, the book finds evidence of a significant degree of intergenerational solidarity both within families at the micro level and between generations more generally within society at the macro level in Britain. However, given substantial inequalities within different generations as a result, in particular, of social class divisions, some families are able to support each other far more than others. This means that strong intergenerational solidarity may lead to the entrenchment of existing intragenerational inequalities. The book will be of interest to scholars and students researching Sociology, Social Policy, Family Sociology, Generations and Intergenerational Relationships.

Focuses on intergenerational mobility, and intergenerational transmission of inequality.

The debate on inheritance and inheritance taxation has always been linked with the " efficiency versus equity issue". Some consider inheritance taxes as highly appropriate means to bring forth more economic equality, especially equality in starting conditions. Others openly doubt the effectiveness of inheritance taxes in this domain, and point out that the negative effects may outweigh the positive. Some go as far as to say that high inheritance taxes threaten fundamental ethical values and should therefore be abolished. In this book both economists and philosophers try to disentangle these and related theoretical issues. It gives an overview of what economists and philosophers have to say on the matter, and confronts and discusses two radically opposed reform proposals.