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Taxing reproduction: the full transfer cost of rearing children in Europe

What are the intergenerational resource transfer contributions of parents and non-parents in Europe? Using National Transfer Accounts and National Time Transfer Accounts for 12 countries around 2010, we go beyond public transfers (net taxes) to also value two statistically much less visible transfer...

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Autores principales: Vanhuysse, Pieter, Medgyesi, Márton, Gál, Róbert Iván
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10565363/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37830014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230759
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author Vanhuysse, Pieter
Medgyesi, Márton
Gál, Róbert Iván
author_facet Vanhuysse, Pieter
Medgyesi, Márton
Gál, Róbert Iván
author_sort Vanhuysse, Pieter
collection PubMed
description What are the intergenerational resource transfer contributions of parents and non-parents in Europe? Using National Transfer Accounts and National Time Transfer Accounts for 12 countries around 2010, we go beyond public transfers (net taxes) to also value two statistically much less visible transfers in the family realm: of market goods and of unpaid household labour (time). Non-parents contribute almost exclusively to public transfers. But parents additionally provide still larger private transfers: mothers mainly time, fathers mainly market goods. Estimating transfer stocks over the working life, the average parental/non-parental contribution ratio in Europe flips from 0.73 (public transfers alone) to 2.66 (all three transfers combined). The highest combined parental/non-parental contribution ratios are in Sweden and Finland. The metaphorical tax rates implicitly imposed thereby on rearing children in Europe are multiples of the value-added tax rates in place on consumption goods. Unveiling the sheer magnitude of these invisible transfer asymmetries carries multiple implications for policy debates. For instance, it raises the question whether ageing European societies unwittingly tax, rather than subsidise, their own reproduction. Family friendly policy models, such as the Nordic welfare states, do not mitigate this effect. They help parents work, but do not lower the implicit tax parents pay.
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spelling pubmed-105653632023-10-12 Taxing reproduction: the full transfer cost of rearing children in Europe Vanhuysse, Pieter Medgyesi, Márton Gál, Róbert Iván R Soc Open Sci Science, Society and Policy What are the intergenerational resource transfer contributions of parents and non-parents in Europe? Using National Transfer Accounts and National Time Transfer Accounts for 12 countries around 2010, we go beyond public transfers (net taxes) to also value two statistically much less visible transfers in the family realm: of market goods and of unpaid household labour (time). Non-parents contribute almost exclusively to public transfers. But parents additionally provide still larger private transfers: mothers mainly time, fathers mainly market goods. Estimating transfer stocks over the working life, the average parental/non-parental contribution ratio in Europe flips from 0.73 (public transfers alone) to 2.66 (all three transfers combined). The highest combined parental/non-parental contribution ratios are in Sweden and Finland. The metaphorical tax rates implicitly imposed thereby on rearing children in Europe are multiples of the value-added tax rates in place on consumption goods. Unveiling the sheer magnitude of these invisible transfer asymmetries carries multiple implications for policy debates. For instance, it raises the question whether ageing European societies unwittingly tax, rather than subsidise, their own reproduction. Family friendly policy models, such as the Nordic welfare states, do not mitigate this effect. They help parents work, but do not lower the implicit tax parents pay. The Royal Society 2023-10-11 /pmc/articles/PMC10565363/ /pubmed/37830014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230759 Text en © 2023 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Science, Society and Policy
Vanhuysse, Pieter
Medgyesi, Márton
Gál, Róbert Iván
Taxing reproduction: the full transfer cost of rearing children in Europe
title Taxing reproduction: the full transfer cost of rearing children in Europe
title_full Taxing reproduction: the full transfer cost of rearing children in Europe
title_fullStr Taxing reproduction: the full transfer cost of rearing children in Europe
title_full_unstemmed Taxing reproduction: the full transfer cost of rearing children in Europe
title_short Taxing reproduction: the full transfer cost of rearing children in Europe
title_sort taxing reproduction: the full transfer cost of rearing children in europe
topic Science, Society and Policy
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10565363/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37830014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230759
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