Older childless adults' inter-vivos transfers of emotional, instrumental, and financial support and predictors of giving to kin and non-kin

Abstract

Inter-vivos transfers, or support given to others during a person's lifetime, are vital to the economy, public resource preservation, and social policies. The increasing prevalence of childlessness among older adults and their often ample resources warrant an investigation into their inter-vivos transfers and an understanding of predictors of giving. This dissertation explored mid- to later-life childless adults' (N = 339) inter-vivos transfers of emotional, instrumental, and financial support to kin and non-kin and examined two individual-level and six social-level predictors of making those transfers using data from the second wave of the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS2). In addition, the relationship between inter-vivos transfers, social-level predictors of giving, and the childless adults' sex and marital status were identified. Results indicated more similarities than differences in giving between childless women and childless men as well as between ever married and never married childless adults, none of the social-level predictors were related to inter-vivos transfers, and sex and marital status rarely moderated the relationship between inter-vivos transfers and the social-level predictors of giving.