The Panel Study of Income Dynamics is the most widely used dataset in the U.S. for studying how intergenerational processes contribute to individual well-being. This project designs 12 minutes of new content in two new modules-a Family Roster Module and a Family Transfers Module to be added to the;2013 PSID interview. These innovative modules will provides new, public-use data to understand the mechanisms by which economic advantage is transmitted across generations and makes the PSID the only long-term panel representative of the full U.S. population equipped to study life course and multigenerational exchanges of time, money and co-residence. The project has five objectives: First, we lead the design of new data modules that roster all living children and parents of the heads and spouses of PSID households, obtain basic socio-demographic information on each such relative and collect two types of transfers: a) recent time and money transfers between PSID Heads and Wives, their older parents, and their adult children and b) larger transfers made at any time in the past, including help with college expenses, first home purchase, and other transfers of wealth. Second, we use these data to analyze how families share resources, with a focus on the effects of wealth and unemployment shocks on transfers between family members. Third, we link a subsample of PSID children and parents with information on transfers collected in 1988 and in the new module in 2013 to: a) examine variation in giving/receiving across families at two points in time and b) assess whether children who received time or money assistance from parents earlier in life are more likely to give help to parents later in life. Fourth, we explore the relative importance of two forms of transfers that parents make to their adult children - investing in children's higher education and providing;inter vivos wealth transfers - in generating well-documented intergenerational correlations in economic attainment. Finally, we use the information collected in the rostering of parents, parents-in-law, and children to explore the impact of attrition on the overall characteristics of the PSID sample, on the intergenerational correlations in attainment, and on estimates of intergenerational transfers of time and money.
;This Project will expand the scientific value of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for studying intergenerational family dynamics, including parent investments in children's education and later life economic wellbeing and children's care for older parents. The data will enhance understanding of transfers of time and money across generations and over the life course and their role in the transmission of economic wellbeing
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