Sharing the Wealth: The Effect of Siblings on Adults' Wealth Ownership

Keister, Lisa A.

doi:10.2307/1515158

Cited by 22 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Prior research has shown that Whites were more likely than minorities to hold high-risk and high-return assets (Keister 2000). Hence in order to control for this Keister (2003) finds that having a larger number of children is negatively associated with ownership of risky assets. Hence, number of children variable is included in the model as well.…”

Section: Independent Variablesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Individual Wealth Accumulation: Why Does Dining Together as a Family Matter?

Chatterjee¹,

Palmer²,

Goetz³

2015

SSRN Journal

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This study uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine whether selfregulation, proxied by regularly dining together with family, is associated with better financial preparedness and greater wealth accumulation across time among households. Findings reveal that individuals who had sufficient self-regulation to regularly eat meals together with their family, increased wealth at a faster rate than others between 1994 and 2004. Moreover, those who exhibited self-regulation by frequently spending mealtime with their family showed greater preference for investment portfolio diversification. Consistent with other studies, results indicate that wealth accumulation increased with age, income, and educational attainment.

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Section: Independent Variablesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Individual Wealth Accumulation: Why Does Dining Together as a Family Matter?

Chatterjee¹,

Palmer²,

Goetz³

2015

SSRN Journal

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“…Poor performance on cognitive tests in childhood is also predictive of poor adult educational qualifications and social mobility [91]. Finally, and of particular relevance to evolutionary theories of modern low fertility, Keister [88,92] shows that the combined effects of large family size on inheritance sums and potential for income generation are responsible for strong negative relationships between family size and adult wealth ownership (see also [72]). This implies that highfertility strategies in modern populations will have important negative consequences for the wealth of future generations.…”

Section: Parental Investment and Fertility Declinementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cooney & Uhlenberg [86] for example, have reported that number of siblings is negatively related to a range of later investments including the direct receipt of money or gifts, giving advice in difficult decisions and direct assistance with childcare (see also [87]). Keister [88] has also demonstrated that number of siblings has a strong negative influence on the likelihood of receiving a trust fund or an inheritance. In modern populations, childhood height is closely associated with adult height [89].…”

Section: Parental Investment and Fertility Declinementioning

confidence: 99%

Parental investment and the optimization of human family size

Lawson

Mace

2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

144

126

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Human reproductive behaviour is marked by exceptional variation at the population and individual level. Human behavioural ecologists propose adaptive hypotheses to explain this variation as shifting phenotypic optima in relation to local socioecological niches. Here we review evidence that variation in fertility (offspring number), in both traditional and modern industrialized populations, represents optimization of the life-history trade-off between reproductive rate and parental investment. While a reliance on correlational methods suggests the true costs of sibling resource competition are often poorly estimated, a range of anthropological and demographic studies confirm that parents balance family size against offspring success. Evidence of optimization is less forthcoming. Declines in fertility associated with modernization are particularly difficult to reconcile with adaptive models, because fertility limitation fails to enhance offspring reproductive success. Yet, considering alternative measures, we show that modern low fertility confers many advantages on offspring, which are probably transmitted to future generations. Evidence from populations that have undergone or initiated demographic transition indicate that these rewards to fertility limitation fall selectively on relatively wealthy individuals. The adaptive significance of modern reproductive behaviour remains difficult to evaluate, but may be best understood in response to rising investment costs of rearing socially and economically competitive offspring.

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“…Investment patterns vary according to local ecological factors, including resource renewability, extrinsic mortality risks, and population change. Competition between siblings is expected to be greatest, and parental investment more biased, for those resources that are the key determinants of future success, e.g., health care (12), education (13,14), and heritable wealth (15)(16)(17)(18).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Land inheritance establishes sibling competition for marriage and reproduction in rural Ethiopia

Gibson

Gurmu

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Intergenerational transfer of wealth has been proposed as playing a pivotal role in the evolution of human sibling relationships. Sibling rivalry is assumed to be more marked when offspring compete for limited heritable resources, which are crucial for reproductive success (e.g., land and livestock); whereas in the absence of heritable wealth, related siblings may cooperate. To date, comparative studies undertaken to support this evolutionary assumption have been confounded by other socioecological factors, which vary across populations, e.g., food sharing and intergroup conflict. In this article we explore effects of sibling competition and cooperation for agricultural resources, marriage, and reproduction in one contemporary Ethiopian agropastoralist society. Here recent changes in land tenure policy, altering transfers of land from parents to offspring, present a unique framework to test the importance of intergenerational transfers of wealth in driving sibling competition, while controlling for socioeconomic biases. In households where land is inherited, the number of elder brothers reduces a man's agricultural productivity, marriage, and reproductive success, as resources diminish and competition increases with each additional sibling. Where land is not inherited (for males receiving land directly from the government and all females) older siblings do not have a competitive effect and in some instances may be beneficial. This study has wider implications for the evolution of human family sizes. Recent changes in wealth transfers, which have driven sibling competition, may be contributing to an increased desire for smaller family sizes.

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Sharing the Wealth: The Effect of Siblings on Adults' Wealth Ownership

Abstract: Inequality in wealth has

Cited by 22 publications

References 24 publications

Individual Wealth Accumulation: Why Does Dining Together as a Family Matter?

Individual Wealth Accumulation: Why Does Dining Together as a Family Matter?

Parental investment and the optimization of human family size

Land inheritance establishes sibling competition for marriage and reproduction in rural Ethiopia

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