Parenting With Style: Altruism and Paternalism in Intergenerational Preference Transmission

Abstract

We develop a theory of parent‐child relations that rationalizes the choice between alternative parenting styles (as set out in Baumrind, 1967). Parents maximize an objective function that combines Beckerian altruism and paternalism towards children. They can affect their children's choices via two channels: either by influencing children's preferences or by imposing direct restrictions on their choice sets. Different parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive) emerge as equilibrium outcomes and are affected both by parental preferences and by the socioeconomic environment. Parenting style, in turn, feeds back into the children's welfare and economic success. The theory is consistent with the decline of authoritarian parenting observed in industrialized countries and with the greater prevalence of more permissive parenting in countries characterized by low inequality.

Competition for University Places and Parental Time Investments: Evidence From the United Kingdom

“…Evidence from Gimenez-Nadal and Sevilla (2012) on trends in time allocation shows comparable increases in parental time investments of about 2 hours for seven industrialized countries including the United Kingdom from the 1970s to the 2000s. Explanations offered by the literature for this overall increase in parental time investments include selection into parenthood (Bianchi, Robinson, and Milkie 2006) and changing parenting styles (Doepke and Zilibotti 2017).…”

“…Here, we use information from the European Values Study (1981, 1990, and 1999) and World Values Survey Data, 2005(WVS, 2005 for a sample of parents aged 18-65 (Data appendix in Appendix S1). Using principal components analysis, we construct a parenting values index that stresses independence and imagination over obedience and we interpret this as indicative of the concerted cultivation approach (Doepke and Zilibotti 2017;Lareau 2003). 20 We estimate 20.…”

Child Development and Parental Investment: Introduction

“…The technology is stage-specific, allowing for critical and sensitive periods in the formation of skills and the effectiveness of investment. 11 This technology accommodates the family formation of child preferences, as in Becker and Mulligan (1997), Bisin and Verdier (2001), Becker et al (2012) and Doepke and Zilibotti (2012). The first term in (2) captures two distinct ideas:…”

Intergenerational Transmission of Authoritative Parenting Style: Evidence from Japan

“…Following Doepke and Zilibotti (2017), we regress parenting style in multinomial models. Multinomial variable Authoritative_Ticket from Q40 is employed as the dependent variable.…”

“…Authoritative parents exhibit high levels of both demandingness and responsiveness. Based on these two dimensions, and following Baumrind (1978) and Doepke and Zilibotti (2017), we employ two questions (Q39 and Q40) in the survey as a measurement of authoritative parenting.…”