Adult Children’s Marital Timing and Upward Intergenerational Financial Transfers: Variation across Gender, Race, and Ethnicity

Abstract

Marriage is a key adult milestone yet is also considered a greedy institution that monopolizes resources, jeopardizing adult children’s financial transfers to aging parents. As the age at which marriage shifts later into adulthood, this study examines whether marriage still operates as a greedy institution, considering the role of marital timing on upward financial transfers to aging parents. Using data from Waves I–V of Add Health and Wave I of the Add Health Parent Questionnaire from 1994 to 2018, we examined whether timing of marriage (never, early, on time, and late) was associated with adult children’s upward financial transfers to their parents, accounting for variation across gender, race, and ethnicity. Adult children who never married were the largest group who gave upward financial transfers to their aging parents (33%). Results suggested that marriage or timing of marriage was a greedy institution among men, women, white, Hispanic, and Asian adults, but not Black adults, suggesting heterogeneity in the role of marriage on family support.

Keywords

• marriage
• intergenerational relationships
• life course perspective
• gender
• race and ethnicity
• financial transfers