A Comparison of U.S. Mother and Daughter Reports about Intergenerational Transfers

I-Fen Lin, Bowling Green State University
Megan Hanning, Bowling Green State University

Using data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Surveys of Mature Women and Young Women, we examine agreements between mother and daughter reports about time and money transfers. Specifically, three research questions are addressed. First, how much agreement is there between mother and daughter reports of transfers from adult daughters to their older parents? Second, what factors predict disagreements between mother and daughter reports? Last, do researchers using reports from mothers and those using reports from daughters reach the same conclusions about the factors that predict intergenerational transfers? We find that compared to mother reports, daughters tend to “over-report” both money and time transferred. The disagreements between mother and daughter reports are significantly associated with the characteristics of the event, respondents’ motivation or ability to recall, and social desirability. Finally, we find different factors predicting transfers using mother or daughter reports, but the differences in effect sizes are small.