Sex Differences in Intergenerational Income Transmission and Educational Attainment: Testing the Trivers-Willard Hypothesis

Abstract

From an evolutionary point of view, sex differences in intergenerational transmission of income may be influenced by the Trivers-Willard (T-W) effect: Low status parents should invest more in daughters, whereas high status parents are expected to invest more in sons. This bias in parental investment may result in status-dependent sex biased parental support for higher education and educational attainment and should therefore affect the level of intergenerational income transmission for the sons and daughters. We used the data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) to model the effect of parental financial investment on the child's income and educational attainment controlling for the number of siblings. The observed sex differences in intergenerational income transmission demonstrate that sons profited more from parental income and education in terms of their own income than daughters. Furthermore, we showed that fathers with a high socioeconomic index (SEI) invest more in their sons' education in terms of completed years of education and financial support during college. In contrast daughters of low SEI fathers completed more years of education and received more financial support than sons of low SEI fathers. However, the pattern in intergenerational income transmission might be better explained as a product of sociological factors and reproductive trade-offs in later life rather than as a consequence of the T-W effect.

Parental background and daughters’ and sons’ educational outcomes – application of the Trivers-Willard hypothesis

“…Additionally, the sample of high school students itself may be biased. Pink, Schaman, and Fieder (2017) themselves noted that the sample was one of the limitations of their study.…”

“…This study focuses on the second interpretation and observes whether family conditions explain educational outcomes of the sons and daughters within families. The same interpretation of the TWH is used in various previous studies that have investigated the investments of the parents in children's education (see e.g., Hopcroft, 2005;Pink, Schaman, & Fieder, 2017).…”

“…These parental investments advance boys when the sex gap in GPAs between boys and girl is narrower (still favoring girls) for children of high status than low status fathers. Additionally, in the U.S., Pink, Schaman, and Fieder (2017) found that sons profited more from parental income and education in terms of their own income than daughters, and fathers with a high SES invest more in their sons' education in terms of completed years of education and the parents' support for college. In contrast, daughters of low SEI fathers completed more years of education and received more financial support than sons of low SEI fathers.…”

“…To contrast the results to previous studies (i.e., Hopcroft, 2005;Hopcroft & Martin, 2016;Pink, Schaman, & Fieder, 2017) the presentation of the results begins by showing OLS models. Figure 1 and the first row in Table 2 reports interaction models between standardized parental education and the child's sex.…”

“…In modern societies, asymmetrical parental investments influenced by parental SES conditions can be expected to manifest in sons' and daughters' educational outcomes as parents are able to direct their children's educational attainment (Bernardi & Ballarino, 2016). Some studies have found support for asymmetrical parental investments in the United States (Hopcroft, 2005;Hopcroft & Martin, 2016;Pink, Schaman, & Fieder, 2017), whereas some have not (see Freese & Powell, 1999). No previous study has examined the TW hypothesis using Finnish data.…”