Cargando…
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...
Autores principales: | , , |
---|---|
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 |
_version_ | 1785118678648356864 |
---|---|
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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10565363 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT vanhuyssepieter taxingreproductionthefulltransfercostofrearingchildrenineurope AT medgyesimarton taxingreproductionthefulltransfercostofrearingchildrenineurope AT galrobertivan taxingreproductionthefulltransfercostofrearingchildrenineurope |