Personality, Preferences and Intergenerational Ties

Shelly J. Lundberg, University of California, Santa Barbara
Seth Borgo, University of Washington

Add Health respondents (age 24-32) report on several aspects of their relationship with parents: frequency of contact, satisfaction with communications, and recent monetary transfers. We examine sources of variation in the intensity and quality of intergenerational ties, including personality traits and risk aversion as well as childhood circumstances and current resources. We find that factors expected to affect motives for maintaining parental ties, such as agreeableness and risk aversion, have no significant effect on contact conditional on geographic proximity while extroversion, openness to experience, and emotional stability have strong and consistent effects. These findings suggest that the immediate satisfactions of family contacts are the principal drivers of generational ties at this stage of the life-cycle, rather than longer-term considerations such as the desire for insurance. Actual financial transfers, both to and from parents, are associated with the likelihood of financial difficulties rather than strong ties.