IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/exehis/v46y2009i3p356-367.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The widow's offering: Inheritance, family structure, and the charitable gifts of women

Author

Listed:
  • McGranahan, Leslie

Abstract

Researchers and commentators have compared men and women's charitable giving patterns and have concluded that one sex was more generous than the other. Most research based on modern data has found women to be more philanthropic than men. In this article, I compare charitable donations of unmarried men and women in a sample of wills from 17th Century England. I find that men are more likely to make donations than women and make larger average donations. This difference in giving can be explained by differences in wealth and family structure and should not be ascribed to differences in charitable impulses.

Suggested Citation

  • McGranahan, Leslie, 2009. "The widow's offering: Inheritance, family structure, and the charitable gifts of women," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 356-367, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:46:y:2009:i:3:p:356-367
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014-4983(09)00017-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Andreoni & Eleanor Brown & Isaac Rischall, 2003. "Charitable Giving by Married Couples Who Decides and Why Does it Matter?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(1).
    2. Eckel, Catherine C & Grossman, Philip J, 1998. "Are Women Less Selfish Than Men? Evidence from Dictator Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 726-735, May.
    3. Fairlie, Robert W, 1999. "The Absence of the African-American Owned Business: An Analysis of the Dynamics of Self-Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(1), pages 80-108, January.
    4. James Andreoni & Lise Vesterlund, 2001. "Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 293-312.
    5. Clark, Gregory & Hamilton, Gillian, 2006. "Survival of the Richest: The Malthusian Mechanism in Pre-Industrial England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(3), pages 707-736, September.
    6. Fairlie, Robert W., 2003. "An Extension of the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition Technique to Logit and Probit Models," Center Discussion Papers 28425, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    7. Rooney, Patrick M. & Mesch, Debra J. & Chin, William & Steinberg, Kathryn S., 2005. "The effects of race, gender, and survey methodologies on giving in the US," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 173-180, February.
    8. Leslie Moscow McGranahan, 2000. "Charity and the Bequest Motive: Evidence from Seventeenth-Century Wills," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1270-1291, December.
    9. Clark, Gregory & Hamilton, Gillian, 2006. "Survival of the Richest: The Malthusian Mechanism in Pre-Industrial England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(03), pages 707-736, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Leslie Moscow McGranahan, 2000. "Charity and the Bequest Motive: Evidence from Seventeenth-Century Wills," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1270-1291, December.
    2. Livio Di Matteo, 2016. "Wealth Distribution and the Canadian Middle Class: Historical Evidence and Policy Implications," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 42(2), pages 132-151, June.
    3. Di Matteo, Livio, 2013. "Women, wealth and economic change: An assessment of the impact of women's property law in Wentworth County, Ontario, 1872–1927," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 285-307.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Starr, Martha A., 2009. "The social economics of ethical consumption: Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 916-925, December.
    2. Bettinger, Eric & Slonim, Robert, 2006. "Using experimental economics to measure the effects of a natural educational experiment on altruism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1625-1648, September.
    3. Matt Parrett, 2006. "An Analysis of the Determinants of Tipping Behavior: A Laboratory Experiment and Evidence from Restaurant Tipping," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(2), pages 489-514, October.
    4. Rigdon, Mary & Ishii, Keiko & Watabe, Motoki & Kitayama, Shinobu, 2009. "Minimal social cues in the dictator game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 358-367, June.
    5. Emrich, Eike & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2015. "Public goods, private consumption, and human-capital formation: On the economics of volunteer labour supply," Working Papers of the European Institute for Socioeconomics 14, European Institute for Socioeconomics (EIS), Saarbrücken.
    6. van Rijn, Jordan & Quinones, Esteban J. & Barham, Bradford L., 2017. "An Experimental Test of Gender Differences in Charitable Giving: Empathy Is at the Heart of the Matter," Staff Paper Series 586, University of Wisconsin, Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    7. Stephan Meier, 2007. "Do Women Behave Less or More Prosocially than Men?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 35(2), pages 215-232, March.
    8. Rene Bekkers, 2007. "Measuring altruistic behavior in surveys: The all-or-nothing dictator game," Artefactual Field Experiments 00102, The Field Experiments Website.
    9. Brian Duncan, 2009. "Secret Santa Reveals The Secret Side Of Giving," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(1), pages 165-181, January.
    10. Brosig-Koch, Jeannette & Helbach, Christoph & Ockenfels, Axel & Weimann, Joachim, 2011. "Still different after all these years: Solidarity behavior in East and West Germany," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1373-1376.
    11. Becchetti, Leonardo & Degli Antoni, Giacomo & Ottone, Stefania & Solferino, Nazaria, 2013. "Allocation criteria under task performance: The gendered preference for protection," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 96-111.
    12. Clark, Gregory & Cummins, Neil, 2016. "The Child Quality-Quantity Tradeoff, England, 1780-1880: A Fundamental Component of the Economic Theory of Growth is Missing," CEPR Discussion Papers 11232, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Fredrik Carlsson & Dinky Daruvala & Olof Johansson‐Stenman, 2005. "Are People Inequality‐Averse, or Just Risk‐Averse?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 72(287), pages 375-396, August.
    14. Yuzuru Kumon & Mohamed Saleh, 2023. "The Middle‐Eastern marriage pattern? Malthusian dynamics in nineteenth‐century Egypt," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(4), pages 1231-1258, November.
    15. Marie-Laure Cabon-Dhersin & Nathalie Etchart-Vincent, 2013. "Wording and gender effects in a Game of Chicken. An explorative experimental study," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00796708, HAL.
    16. Peter G. Backus & Nicky L. Grant, 2019. "How sensitive is the average taxpayer to changes in the tax-price of giving?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(2), pages 317-356, April.
    17. Larry E. Jones & Michele Tertilt, 2006. "An Economic History of Fertility in the U.S.: 1826-1960," NBER Working Papers 12796, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Binglin Gong & Huibin Yan & Chun-Lei Yang, 2015. "Gender differences in the dictator experiment: evidence from the matrilineal Mosuo and the patriarchal Yi," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 302-313, June.
    19. Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Meier, "undated". "Pro-Social Behavior, Reciprocity or Both?," IEW - Working Papers 107, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    20. Alberto Basso & David Cuberes, 2013. "Fertility and Financial Development: Evidence from U.S. Counties in the 19th Century," Working Papers 2013011, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:46:y:2009:i:3:p:356-367. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622830 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.