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Positive assortative mating may be a driver of wealth inequalities, but this relationship has not yet been examined. We investigate the association between assortative mating and wealth inequality within and between households drawing on data from the United States Survey of Income and Program Participation and measuring current, individual-level wealth for newly formed couples (N  = 3936 couples). We find that partners positively sort according to wealth over and above sorting by age, race, education, and income. In the absence of assortative mating according to wealth, the Gini coefficient for between-household wealth inequality would be 7 percent lower. Wealth inequalities would thus remain high if couples did not match by wealth. We find a within-household wealth gap of about USD 23,000 to the disadvantage of women. Whereas the within-household wealth gap would be markedly greater for women at the bottom and in the middle of the female wealth distribution without assortative mating, we also find that women would have a substantial wealth advantage under random matching at the top of the female wealth distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we argue that parents' class position may influence the type and timing of their offspring's investments in financial assets. These investments may facilitate net worth accumulation beyond direct transfers, contributing to the intergenerational reproduction of social positions. We test these expectations using retrospective life history and prospective panel data for 14 countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We apply discrete-time event history analyses to examine the first financial investments' timing over the life course and conduct a mediation analysis of net worth. We find that individuals from advantaged parental classes are more likely to invest in stocks and mutual funds. When considering horizontal differentiation, managerial classes with relatively more economic capital than cultural capital are more likely to invest in financial assets. However, we do not find robust evidence for distinct timings of financial investments by parental class. Advantaged parental class is positively associated with net worth in later life. However, this association cannot be explained by the specific investments of individuals from advantaged parental classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Families' economic wealth is a resource that can provide children with crucial advantages early in their lives. Prior research identified substantial variation of wealth levels between different family types with children from single-parent families being most disadvantaged. The causes of this disadvantage, how much the disadvantage varies between children and how the non-resident parents' wealth may potentially reduce the disadvantage remain unclear. To address these research gaps, we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (2002–17) to examine the level of and inequality in wealth for children from single-parent families using recentred influence function regression and decomposition analysis. We replicate earlier findings of a large wealth disadvantage for children in single-parent families. We find that the wealth disadvantage can be mainly explained with compositional differences in household income and employment characteristics. Beyond level differences, inequality between children from single-parent families is higher than for other family types and this inequality can only partly be explained by observed demographic and socio-economic characteristics. When considering the wealth of non-resident parents, the wealth disadvantage of children in single-parent families is reduced but remains substantial. JEL-codes: D31, D1, J1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the association between parental separations during childhood and economic wealth of adult children. We provide a new test of this relationship and address two unresolved debates in the literature concerning (1) the pathways linking parental separation and adult children's wealth and (2) the relevance of the timing of exposure. We use data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey on 16,652 individuals and estimate mixed effects models after matching to predict adult children's wealth. We find that parental separation is associated with about 46 percent less net wealth for adult children. The negative association is limited to adult children who experienced parental divorce before age 15. The association does not differ between children who experienced parental divorce before age 6 and between age 6 and 14. We identify reduced education and earning capacities, unstable family structures among adult children and less future-oriented time preferences as likely mechanisms through which parental separation influences adult children's wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To document how changes in household wealth following the dissolution of marriage and cohabitation differ by gender in Germany. Background: Marital property regimes usually prescribe that both partners receive a share of the couple's wealth following a divorce. The dissolution of cohabiting unions is not governed by marital property regimes in most countries, including Germany. Because men, on average, legally own a larger share of couple wealth than women, gender differences in household wealth might be more pronounced following the dissolution of cohabitation as compared to marriage. Method: The analysis consists of individual fixed effects regression models using longitudinal data from the German socio‐economic panel (N = 18,131 individuals) for the years 2002 to 2017. Results: The dissolution of marriage is negatively related to the accumulation of wealth over time and effect sizes are similar for men and women. The dissolution of cohabiting unions is related to losses in wealth for women but not for men. Models accounting for various postdissolution factors suggest that an unequal division of household wealth produces these gender differences after the dissolution of cohabitation. Conclusion: Whereas the dissolution of marriage lowers household wealth for men and women alike, there are gender differences in how the dissolution of cohabiting unions affects the accumulation of wealth. Union dissolution therefore has the potential to contribute to gender inequality in household wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The finding that homeowners own more non-housing wealth than tenants is well known. We examine whether the higher financial wealth of owners can be partly explained with increases in saving when becoming a homeowner in two distinct institutional contexts. Using longitudinal data for the UK (British Household Panel Survey) and Germany (Socio-Economic Panel Study), we find that homeowners save more and are financially wealthier than tenants. However, when controlling for time-constant selection into homeownership, upon entering homeownership households reduce their probability to save in Germany and reduce their average saving rate in Germany and the UK. For Germany, there is some evidence that processes of homemaking (family formation and home improvement) lead to less saving. For the UK, we find no evidence that increasing home equity over time discourages saving. Finally, tenants do not compensate for their lack of housing wealth by accumulating more non-housing wealth over time. This disadvantage for tenants seems more pronounced in the UK compared to Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how atypical employment (i.e., part-time, temporary work, mini-jobs) affects workers' ability to accumulate financial assets and exposes them to asset poverty in Germany. Asset poverty occurs when household financial resources (e.g., bank deposits and stock equity) are insufficient to live at the income poverty line for three months. Previously, studies on labour market processes and wealth inequalities have been chiefly disconnected. Still, a large share of assets is accumulated from labour earnings, and thus, individual employment experiences likely affect asset accumulation. We draw on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP, 2002–2017) and apply fixed-effect growth curve models. Compared to standard employment, we find that spells in temporary work and mini-jobs lead to lower levels of net financial assets, while part-time work results in similar asset growth rates. Furthermore, unemployment and inactivity undermine financial asset accumulation more than atypical employment. This suggests that temporary positions are even more detrimental if interspersed by periods of no employment. We also find that the detrimental effect of atypical employment is larger for low educated than high-educated and that penalties of previous spells of mini-jobs are larger for men than women, but the contrary is true concerning temporary employment. Finally, asset poverty risk increases only for unemployment and inactivity, not atypical employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the association between parenthood and the growth of personal wealth of women and men over time. We argue that parenthood creates unique restrictions and opportunity structures for mothers and fathers in terms of personal wealth accumulation. Using rich data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (2002, 2007, 2012; N=28,650 individuals), we apply randomeffects growth curve models to test our expectations. We find that mothers' personal wealth growth rates are lower compared to childless women and compared to fathers. A considerable share of this association can be explained by discontinuous employment experiences of women in Germany, a context with a dominant male-breadwinner model. The wealth accumulation of mothers is additionally depressed by early first births and non-marital births. For men, parenthood is not generally associated with wealth accumulation, but we identify variation in the association with regard to the timing of and marital status at first birth. These results reveal a substantial motherhood wealth penalty previously hidden in analyses of household-level wealth, thereby contributing to our understanding of gender inequalities in economic well-being over the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]