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Parental Spending on School-Age Children: Structural Stratification and Parental Expectation

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  • Lingxin Hao
  • Wei-Jun Yeung

Abstract

As consumption expenditures are increasingly recognized as direct measures of children’s material well-being, they provide new insights into the process of intergenerational transfers from parents to children. Little is known, however, about how parents allocate financial resources to individual children. To fill this gap, we develop a conceptual framework based on stratification theory, human capital theory, and the child-development perspective; exploit unique child-level expenditure data from Child Supplements of the PSID; and employ quantile regression to model the distribution of parental spending on children. Overall, we find strong evidence supporting our hypotheses regarding the effects of socioeconomic status (SES), race, and parental expectation. Our nuanced estimates suggest that (1) parental education, occupation, and family income have differential effects on parental spending, with education being the most influential determinant; (2) net of SES, race continues to be a significant predictor of parental spending on children; and (3) parental expectation plays a crucial role in determining whether parents place a premium on child development in spending and how parents prioritize different categories of spending. Copyright Population Association of America 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Lingxin Hao & Wei-Jun Yeung, 2015. "Parental Spending on School-Age Children: Structural Stratification and Parental Expectation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(3), pages 835-860, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:demogr:v:52:y:2015:i:3:p:835-860
    DOI: 10.1007/s13524-015-0386-1
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    Cited by:

    1. Michelle Maroto, 2018. "Saving, Sharing, or Spending? The Wealth Consequences of Raising Children," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(6), pages 2257-2282, December.
    2. Rachel Karen, 2023. "Private Transfers to Young Adult Households in the United States and France," LIS Working papers 866, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    3. Nam, Yunju, 2020. "Parents’ financial assistance for college and black-white disparities in post-secondary educational attainment," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    4. Qianqian Liu & Xiumin Hong & Mei Wang, 2022. "Parental Educational Anxiety during Children’s Transition to Primary School in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-13, November.
    5. Sandra L. Hofferth & David S. Bickham & Jeanne Brooks-Gunn & Pamela E. Davis-Kean & Wei-Jun Jean Yeung, 2018. "Contributions of Research Based on the PSID Child Development Supplement," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 680(1), pages 97-131, November.
    6. Mark E. McGovern & Slawa Rokicki, 2023. "The Great Recession, Household Income, and Children's Test Scores," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(3), pages 555-580, September.
    7. Cai, Xiqian & Fan, Qingliang & Yuan, Congying, 2022. "The impact of only child peers on students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    8. Haoyang Zhang & Jennifer E. Glick, 2024. "Internal Migration: Understanding Parent–Child Differences in Educational Expectations," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 43(2), pages 1-26, April.
    9. Haiyang Lu & Peng Nie & Alfonso Sousa-Poza, 2021. "The Effect of Parental Educational Expectations on Adolescent Subjective Well-Being and the Moderating Role of Perceived Academic Pressure: Longitudinal Evidence for China," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 14(1), pages 117-137, February.
    10. Serhii Maksymovych & William Appleman & Zurab Abramishvili, 2023. "Parental gender preference in the Balkans and Scandinavia: gender bias or differential costs?," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 1-48, December.
    11. Jingye Shi & Bing Xu & Yi Wei, 2020. "Life course and cohort effects on Chinese parents' investments in their children," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 43(8), pages 183-216.
    12. Zurab Abramishvili & William Appleman & Sergii Maksymovych, 2019. "Parental Gender Preference in the Balkans and Scandinavia: Gender Bias or Differential Costs?," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp643, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    13. Wang, Haining & Cheng, Zhiming, 2022. "Kids eat free: School feeding and family spending on education," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 196-212.
    14. Zehui Zhan & Yuanmin Li & Hu Mei & Siyuan Lyu, 2023. "Key competencies acquired from STEM education: gender-differentiated parental expectations," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.

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