Strategic Parent Meets Detached Child? Parental Intended Bequest Division and Support from Children

Whereas the literature has found that elderly parents may use bequests to reward children who provide them with time support, there is limited evidence on whether younger less needy parents may base their intended bequest division on alternative forms of support from children. Using a large-scale dataset of middle-aged and older Singaporeans, I find that parents intend to leave larger bequest shares to coresident children and to children who provide greater material support. Parents also intend to bequeath more to children in whom they confide frequently while they bequeath more to children in whom they rarely confide when the latter give them greater material support. The results suggest that parents may interpret physical and emotional proximity to children as signs of filiality for which they may reward children while detached children may earn such rewards through material support. These findings may have broader implications for both individual and societal well-being.