Family Values, Social Needs and Preferences for Welfare

32 Pages Posted: 11 Nov 2012

See all articles by Claudio Lucifora

Claudio Lucifora

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano ; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Dominique Meurs

University of Paris II Pantheon-Assas - ERMES

Abstract

This paper investigates the links between family values, social needs and individual preferences for welfare using data from the 2005 French “Generation and Gender Survey” (GGS). We analyse individual preferences, for financial assistance and the provision of care services, with respect to welfare support as opposed to within household production. The strength of family ties is based on individual's self-assessed family values (such as, duties, responsibilities and norms of reciprocity), both within the couple and between parents and children. We find a positive association between weak (strong) family values and the preferences for welfare state support (provision of domestic services). The relevance of family values is shown to be invariant to different socio-economic circumstances, such as: financial distress, bad health or family size. Using long term cultural determinants of selected ethnic and religious groups as instruments for family values, we also provide evidence for causal effects.

Keywords: family values, preferences for welfare, culture, religion

JEL Classification: J12, J13, I31, I38

Suggested Citation

Lucifora, Claudio and Meurs, Dominique, Family Values, Social Needs and Preferences for Welfare. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6977, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2173667 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2173667

Claudio Lucifora (Contact Author)

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano ( email )

Department of Economics and Finance
Largo Gemelli, 1
20123 Milano
Italy
+39 027 234 2525 (Phone)
+39 027 234 2781 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Dominique Meurs

University of Paris II Pantheon-Assas - ERMES ( email )

12 Place du Panthéon
Paris, Cedex 5, 75005
France

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
139
Abstract Views
1,014
Rank
376,949
PlumX Metrics