Determinants of Intergenerational Family Solidarity during the Great Recession: the Spanish Case.

Abstract

In the context of an economic crisis that has affected countries in Southern Europe especially and that has called into question the public pillar of the intergenerational contract, i.e. pensions, literature has shown an increasing interest in analyzing the other intergenerational pillar, which is largely based on family solidarity and which has been insufficiently explored for the Spanish case. Therefore, based on official data provided by the Time Use Survey (TUS) and the Household Budget Survey (HBS), an effort has been made to identify, through multivariate models, the individual factors that determined certain expressions of family solidarity and their participation and intensity of time and money transfers among family members in one of the most critical moments of this crisis in Spain (2009/2010). The results question the idea that the unemployed and the retired have been net recipients during the crisis, revealing that it is insufficient to consider only a single manifestation of solidarity, the financial one, when accounting for the wide range of support and transfers that circulate among family members.

The concept of generational contract: A systematic literature review

“…One of the reasons for making contracts in the first place is that they lead to implementation. Formal generational contracts are implemented via social policies (Letablier, 2018), the welfare state at large (Adams, 1989; Albertini & Kohli, 2013; Daly, 2018; Duben, 2013; Farmer, 2005), or through specific re‐distributional systems such as pensions (Bandyopadhyay & La Pere, 2020; Guigou et al, 2012; Lang, 1990; Sánchez Fuentes et al, 2019), social security programmes (Turner, 1984), social health insurance (Buchner & Wasem, 2006), long‐term care policies (Izuhara, 2002), or policies on education (Zheng et al, 2019).…”

“…Another approach to generational contract is to parallel it with welfare state structures, such as equating pension systems to a generational contract (Göransson, 2013; Izuhara, 2005; Lang, 1990; Sánchez Fuentes et al, 2019). In line with several other scholars (e.g., Adams, 1989; Albertini & Kohli, 2013; Daly, 2018; Farmer, 2005), Kohli et al (1997), 183) define the generational contract as the broader welfare state system: “The generational contract, a combination of social insurance entitlements and a pay‐as‐you‐go financing, ties together employment and welfare.” The generational contract is thus portrayed as a synonym for the macro level of social insurance entitlements and their financing focusing on the older generations and on how to secure their income.…”