The interaction of the strategic bequest motive between husband's parents and wife's parents

Wataru Kureishi, Ritsumeikan University
Midori Wakabayashi, Osaka Prefecture University

As indicated by a feud between wife and mother-in-law and a tug-of-war over a grandchild, the relation with spousal parents is essential in Japanese families, but scarcely researched from the perspective of family economics. Then, we analyze the intergenerational transfer of bequest and co-residence with considering a couple, husband's parents, and wife's parents. We examine which model is consistent with Japanese data, the altruistic model or the exchange model. We use 778 respondents of married women aged 24-34 of the "Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers'' conducted by the Institute for Research on Household Economics. Our estimation indicates that if parents leave more bequest, then it is more likely to live with the parents, while the probability of living with the parents decreases if the other parents leave more bequest. These are consistent with the exchange model.