How cash transfers evolved over generations

The nature and extent of financial support provided within the Indian family has evolved with increased migration and changes in familial structures.

A recent research paper has identified social grouping, wealth and land ownership as important factors that influence motives behind the cash transfers between children and parents.

Researchers at the Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru, have tried to track the patterns of India’s intergenerational cash transfers, a largely unexplored subject, using a range of socio-economic markers, from gender, location and education to possession of land and other resources.

Changing patterns

Advancing age, fewer years of schooling, and poor health of the recipients increased the possibility of receipt transfers, indicating that children are taking care of parents in need.

The peer-reviewed working paper, by Kinkar Mandal, research scholar, and Lekha Subaiya, associate professor, Population Research Centre, ISEC, is titled ‘Intergenerational Transfers in India: Who Receives Money and Who Gives Money’. It used data from the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India Wave-1 (2017-18), which covered 31,464 people aged 60 and above.

While parents who are in need receive money, the study found that parents who own resources also receive money transfers from children.

“A parent with wealth, possessed in the form of land or other resources, is more likely to receive, and send, money,” Mandal told DH.

The paper used as explanatory variables living arrangement, age, sex, place of residence, marital status, number of children, religion, caste, and self-rated health.

The respondents’ age was grouped under three categories — 60-69, 70-79, and 80+.

While men (13.2 per cent) have higher chances of receiving money than women (11 per cent), women (4.4 per cent) are more likely to transfer money to their children than men (2.8 per cent).

Receiving money is higher among urban residents (13.4 per cent) senior citizens, compared to rural residents (9.3 per cent). Giving money to children is less among rural resident senior citizens (3.4 per cent) compared to urban residents (3.6 per cent).

Factors including higher wealth and currently working status increased possibilities of transfers made to children, on expected lines, and parents in co-residence were seen as more likely to make the transfers.