Family Complexity and Wealth Holdings in Later Life: Individual Consequences and Cohort Differences in Europe

Davide Gritti , University of Trento
Stefani Scherer , University of Trento

A sizeable literature on demographic changes concerns the increase of the heterogeneity of family life courses in Western countries. In this regard, the multifaceted concept of family complexity has been introduced to qualify the degree to which familiar roles and relationships diverge from the nuclear family ideal type. Recent contributions investigated the consequences of structural as well as dynamic family complexity, bringing evidence of negative outcomes in the very sphere of family and in other domains. This paper asks if there is a negative consequence of family complexity also on the process of wealth accumulation (Q1), and, if any, whether compositional differences are at place when considering cohort differences in wealth holdings (Q2). In our study, we qualify family complexity by assessing distinct family behaviours (marriage dissolution, cohabitation, re-partnering), in turn differently connected to wealth accumulation by specific mechanisms (economies of scale, competition for resources, division of property, resource dilution). This paper uses individual-level data for people born from mid-20s to mid-60s for 11 European countries from the Survey of Health, Age and Retirement (SHARE). Family-life histories are retrieved from special retrospective waves SHARELIFE-3 and SHARELIFE-7. Wealth holdings are retrieved from the standard waves of SHARE. Due to the high quality of the data, they have been extensively used for studying both family and wealth in Europe, but seldom matched. Following the life course principles, family complexity is evaluated from early to late adulthood, while wealth holdings are considered at the end of the working career.

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 Presented in Session 24. Consequences of childhood family for adult life courses