Research in Brief: The Age Profile of Invisible Transfers

These one-pagers summarise key findings of research on gender, time-use and National Transfer Accounts.

Paper Authors: Róbert I. Gál, Endre Szabó and ​Lili Vargha

Publication Date: May 2014

Abstract: We argue that the institutional composition of funding consumption in the two dependent sections of the lifecycle, childhood and old age, are different. To put it sharply, children are raised by their parents, the elderly rely on society. Since the reallocation of resources within households are not registered in National Accounts, the majority of the resources transferred to children are not visible in contrast to resources flowing to the elderly, which are almost entirely observed in public statistics. For our analysis we apply a recent extension of National Accounts, called the National Transfer Accounts, which include intrahousehold transfers; and a further, experimental extension, the National Time Transfer Accounts, which quantifies the value of time transferred among household members in the form of unpaid household labor. We show that about one third of the full transfer package flowing to children is registered in the National Accounts and another roughly one third is made visible by the National Transfer Accounts. The remaining one third, which is the value of parents caring for their children, is made visible by the National Time Transfer Accounts. The corresponding shares in funding old age are quite different: nearly 90 percent is observed in public statistics and the two accounting extensions unfold only a bit more than 10 percent.

The original working paper to which this Research in Brief corresponds can be obtained from the Hungarian Demographic Research Institute here. 

Gender Accounting of Consumption and the Life-cycle Deficit for India

Laishram, L., 2013. "Gender Accounting of Consumption and the Life-cycle Deficit for India". Asia-Pacific Population Journal, 28(2) 27-49.

ABSTRACT:

Life-cycle deficits for women and men in India at different stages of the life cycle are examined in the present paper. Disaggregating life- cycle deficits according to sex, which is termed gender accounting, is important for gender-based budgeting, as it helps Governments allocate funds according to gender needs. A Life-cycle deficit is the difference between income and consumption at different stages of the life cycle. The significance of the paper lies in its contribution to understanding the male-female differential in public and private expenditure on health care, education, and other goods and services in monetary terms and life-cycle deficit. The author finds that, overall, women have a life- cycle deficit, largely due to their lower rates of participation in the paid workforce. However, women perform a large amount of unpaid labour; thus, their life-cycle deficit could turn into a surplus if a monetary value were placed on unpaid labour. However, it is also shown in the present paper that consumption on health-care needs is higher for males in childhood as well as in old age, which can be partly attributed to the discriminatory sociocultural practices that are prevalent in India. As regards education, households tend to spend more on male education than on female education after the age of 15, which is the age at which free-of-charge public education ends.

The author concludes that gender accounting needs to be strengthened so as to allow Governments to allocate funds in order to promote gender equality and empower women. The author also recommends that, in order to achieve gender equality, public funding of health care is not enough. More needs to be done to remove the sociocultural barriers to the use of public services, such as health services.