Читать книгу Wealth - Yuval Elmelech - Страница 30

In wealth research, wealth mobility reflects the life trajectories of families, not solely individuals. This focus on the family as the unit of analysis disrupts and complicates the direct link, previously maintained, between individual effort in the labor market and wealth holdings (Allen and Hamnett 1991; Sorensen 1994). Hao (2007) proposes that, in order to better understand wealth accumulation processes in increasingly diverse industrialized societies, one should study the life-course trajectories of the family (e.g. cohabitation and marriage, the decision to have children, divorce, and remarriage) rather than solely those of the individual.

Empirical studies offer considerable evidence in support of this approach, revealing how critical union formation, marital history, and economies of scale are to wealth accumulation (Wilmoth and Koso 2002; Hao 1996; Benton and Keister 2017). Consequently, as the structure and function of the family become more diverse in industrialized societies with rising rates of cohabitation, childlessness, divorce, and single-living, both individual and family attributes should be considered in wealth analysis.

The LCH has also inspired prolific research into, and extensive debates about, the actual contribution of savings made out of income to wealth accumulation processes; and, particularly, it has stimulated debates about the muted role of intergenerational transfers in the model. Estimates of the share of household total net worth that can be traced back to intergenerational transfers—passed down from older to younger generations—range from less than a quarter to more than three quarters. Gale and Scholz’s (1994) estimates of the US data concluded that most of the accumulated wealth could be attributed to intergenerational transfers rather than to life-cycle savings. An analysis of more recent data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) (1989–2007) suggests that almost 40% of the wealth accumulated by older American households has its origins in intergenerational transfers (Wolff and Gittleman 2014). Wolff (2017: 261), however, notes that, when the sample is restricted to the bottom 95% of the population, the explanatory power of the life-cycle model, with its emphasis on savings out of income, is substantial.

Beyond their contribution to wealth accumulation, intergenerational transfers are also qualitatively different from market transactions. While inter vivos transfers need not be purely altruistic, they are founded on informal bonds and intimate kinship ties, which have an emotional underpinning and are guided by normative obligations to family members and to the preservation of their well-being (Michalski 2003; Kohli 2004). Often there is no conflict of interest or competition between the parties, as both gain from the exchange; one party willingly provides valued social, cultural, or economic resources, which the other party wishes to receive (Michalski 2003). While the flow of economic resources is unidirectional, it still constitutes a form of voluntary social exchange: “Parents who send their children to college know that sustained one-way flows can and do occur in social exchange relations” (Willer 1999: 28).