Taxing Reproduction : The Invisible Transfer Cost of Rearing Children in Europe

What are the intergenerational resource transfer contributions of parents and non-parents in Europe? Using National Transfer and National Time Transfer Accounts for twelve countries around 2010, we go beyond public transfers (net taxes) to also value two statistically less visible transfer types in the family realm: of market goods (money) and of unpaid household labor (time). Non-parents contribute almost exclusively to public transfers. But parents additionally provide still larger private transfers: mothers mainly time, fathers mainly money. Estimating transfer stocks over the working life, the average parental/non-parental contribution ratio flips from 0.73 (public transfers alone) to 2.66 (all three transfers combined). The tax rates implicitly imposed thereby on rearing children are multiples of the value-added tax rates in place on consumption goods. The magnitude of these invisible transfer asymmetries carries multiple implications for sociological debates. For instance, it raises the question whether European societies tax their own reproduction too heavily.