Parents' Education and Their Adult Offspring's Other-Regarding Behavior

55 Pages Posted: 5 Mar 2014

See all articles by Ulrik Nielsen

Ulrik Nielsen

University of Copenhagen - Department of Economics

Date Written: February 26, 2014

Abstract

Does socioeconomic background when measured by parental educational attainment explain the heterogeneity in adults' other-regarding preferences? I test this by using data from two online experiments -- a Dictator Game and a Trust Game that were conducted with a broad sample of the Danish adult population. I match the experimental data with high-quality data from the Danish population registers about my subjects and their parents. Whereas previous studies have found socioeconomic status, including parental educational attainment, to be predictive for children's generosity, I find no such evidence among adults.

This result is robust across age groups and genders. I provide two explanations for this. First, sociodemographic characteristics in general appear to be poor predictors of adults' other-regarding behavior. Second, by using Danish survey data, I find that Danish parents' educational attainment appears to be uncorrelated with how important they find it to teach their children to "think of others". More speculative explanations are also provided.

Keywords: Dictator Game, Trust Game, Generosity, Other-Regarding Preferences, Parental Education, Socioeconomic Status

JEL Classification: C91, D63, D64

Suggested Citation

Nielsen, Ulrik, Parents' Education and Their Adult Offspring's Other-Regarding Behavior (February 26, 2014). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2404412 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2404412

Ulrik Nielsen (Contact Author)

University of Copenhagen - Department of Economics ( email )

Øster Farimagsgade 5
Bygning 26
1353 Copenhagen K.
Denmark

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