Subject: Intergenerational Research--Message from Jon Gruber
From: Joan Stillwell (stillwel@nber.org)
Date: Wed Mar 28 2001 - 11:40:40 EST
Dear Children's Program Member -
>There is an exciting new initiative at NICHD focusing on intergenerational
>research. This seems like an ideal set of topics for members of our
>program to be working on, and there are large resources to back this
>promotion. Please look this over and get back to me if you think you have
>research in this area which might support a NICHD grant.
>
>Thanks -
>
>Jon Gruber
NOTE: Attachment text is reproduced at the bottom of this message.
>==============================
>Jonathan Gruber
>MIT Department of Economics
>50 Memorial Drive, E52-355
>Cambridge MA 02142
>Phone: 617-253-8892
>Fax: 617-253-1330
>E-mail: gruberj@mit.edu
>
>>From: "Evans, Jeffrey (NICHD)" <evansvj@exchange.nih.gov>
>>To: "'Gruber, Jonathan'" <gruberj@mit.edu>
>>Subject: Intergenerational Research
>>Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 14:34:27 -0500
>>Sensitivity: Personal
>>X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
>>
>>Hi, attached is a general piece describing the program. I would love to get
>>specific ideas about research questions. Please pass it around.
>>
>> <<INTERGENERATIONAL RESEARCH Description.doc>>
DBSB PROGRAM ON INTERGENERATIONAL RESEARCH
BACKGROUND
American families face the constant problem of caring for their dependent
young and old while keeping their families prosperous. Families are under
increasing stress to balance the resource demands, involving time,
information and tangible assets, of caring for dependents. Public policy
is also compelled to balance the needs of young and old while adding to the
nation's wealth. Private actions undertaken by families to accumulate and
transfer resources up and down the generational ladder are greatly affected
by public policy aimed at the either the young or old.
In the 1980s, DBSB, in partnership with NIA, sponsored research that
encouraged a broad-based approach to document the existence and
implications of intergenerational relationships. This body of research
forms a foundation upon which new work can be predicated. New data are
available. For example, new information about wealth and asset
accumulation have been added to large scale surveys and several of the
large scale data collection projects involving the adaptation of families
to the age of welfare reform specifically incorporate modules that examine
how families invest in children. Exciting theoretical advances have
occurred since the 1980s. Last year DBSB sponsored a conference on
modeling conflict and cooperation within families and outlined the
considerable theoretical and empirical progress in several related fields.
The DBSB planning Advisory Committee has also identified intergenerational
family processes as an area of opportunity and raised issues that relate to
family decision-making that cut across a number of areas within
DBSB. These developments indicate that the questions of how families make
intergenerational resource decisions and to what effect these decisions
result for children, the elderly, families and society are ripe for program
expansion.
The research community and public policy makers are greatly challenged to
keep the interactive aspects of private behavior and public policy jointly
in focus. The current public interest in reforming institutions and
policies relating to young and old tend to emphasize one age group to the
exclusion of the other. Thus welfare reform, child health insurance
programs, targeted tax credits, child support and fragile family support,
school reform and substitute child care focus on families with dependent
children and reforms of Social Security, Medicare, prescription drug
benefits, estate taxes and long term health care focus on families with
dependent old. The bifurcation of policies has led to an
overspecialization of research. It is timely to undertake a coordinated
plan of action to understand how policies and families are interrelated
through intergenerational behavior within families. Moreover, there is a
gap between research on intergenerational processes at the micro and macro
levels of analysis. These levels of analysis should be complementary
rather than separate fields. Public policy research should be sensitive
to intergenerational resource flows because many of the most pressing
issues of the day involve a significant degree of intergenerational finance.
PURPOSE
The DBSB Program on Intergenerational Research supports research to help us
understand how private behavior is manifest in allocating family resources
across the generations and how public policy affects these allocations. The
program will engage interested agencies to stimulate research that examines
the manner in which public and private family resource allocation decisions
result in improvements in health, wealth accumulation (including human
capital) and wellbeing for children, active adults and the elderly. The
program will also examine how public policy interacts with family processes
to alter these results. Both NICHD and NIA currently support
intergenerational research through the unsolicited research grant
program. Special initiatives are being contemplated for the future.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
There are several levels of questions that could be addressed individually
or in combination. There will be opportunity to win support for both
theoretical and empirical research. Domestic and foreign research models
will be acceptable. Projects may be large or small. Augmentation of
large-scale research surveys will be supported.
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL
At the individual level, we wish to understand how individuals are
developed and sustained. What resources do children need in order to
develop into healthy and productive adults, how do adults build healthy and
prosperous lives and how do the elderly maintain their health and wealth
into advanced ages? How do individuals respond to different types and
levels of resource allocation? How does the level and mix of resources
vary in response to the individual level characteristics and events?
FAMILY LEVEL
At the family level, we wish to understand how individual family members
interrelate to meet their individual needs. How do families make decisions
to allocate resources to meet the competing needs of their members? How
does family structure, culture and public policy combine to influence the
efficiency, efficacy and outcome of family decision-making regarding
resources? How do events such as non-marital childbearing, divorce,
disability or death affect the family's ability to accumulate or allocate
resources?
SOCIETAL LEVEL
At the societal level, we wish to understand how the public and private
allocation of resources across age groups occurs at specific points in time
and over time. What are the intergenerational implications of public
programs such as pre-natal health interventions, subsidized child care,
education, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Do individuals and
families allocate resources toward the same problems as the government?
What are the interrelationships between public and private resource
allocation? What are the macroeconomic implications of intergenerational
behavior?
PROGRAM CONTACT
V. Jeffery Evans Ph.D., J.D.
Director of Intergenerational Research, DBSB, NICHD
Room 8B07, 6100 Executive Blvd.
Bethesda, MD 20892
301-496-1176, Jeff_Evans@nih.gov
