Cultural model as an alternative approach to analyze familial transfers

Abstract

This study proposes an alternative approach in analyzing familial transfers, namely, by investigating how culture affects transfers through family roles. In the first essay, the Single-culture Model, the basic model, is introduced. Culture defines active and passive roles of individuals. The incidents and size of transfers depend on the individual's hierarchy of roles. An empirical test on Javanese Muslims in Indonesia using the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) shows that the effects of being an oldest child, who in Javanese culture holds a specific position, on the likelihood of giving and receiving transfers among siblings and to parents. In the second essay, the basic model is extended to incorporate multiple identities. The assumption is that individuals have more than one identity, and each of those identities carries a set of role expectations. An empirical test using the same data set as in the first essay shows that the effects of Islamic religiosity on transfers are not neutral but are influenced by the salience of the other identities that the respondents hold. The third essay is an analysis of crowding-in and crowding-out effect of public transfer on private transfers to the elderly. Using an extension of the basic model on aggregate level, the results show that crowding-in and crowding-out effects can be explained partly by the expectations borne by the working-age population and the elderly themselves.