Social Class and Social Mobility Differences in Intergenerational Exchanges of Practical and Financial Support in the UK

Eleni Karagiannaki, Tania Burchardt and Xingna Zhang

Published 8 October 2024

How do patterns of intergenerational support vary across social class groups and by upwards or downwards social mobility? Are the patterns observed consistent with reciprocity, altruism, status reproduction or something else, as motivations for providing support? Understanding Society data on providing and receiving practical support and regular financial support among offspring and non-coresident parents underline the importance of intergenerational support in providing a safety net in times of need, but also indicate that for a substantial proportion of the population these types of exchanges are absent. The evidence also indicates that despite the mutuality in the exchanges of support between parents and their offspring, there is also a high degree of unconditional giving. But the evidence also indicates that there are important differences in the intergenerational exchange of support by social class and by social class mobility status. Offspring in higher social class groups and the intergenerationally downward mobile display a lower tendency of engaging in mutual exchanges of support with their parents and a higher tendency of receiving without giving support back to their parents compared to their lower-class and the upwardly mobile or immobile peers respectively. This difference arises from the stronger tendency of lower-class (and downwardly mobile) groups of giving practical support to their parents in exchange of financial support from them whereas differences in intergenerational exchanges of practical support are very similar across groups. Also, the evidence does not suggest that parents or their offspring substitute one form of support with the other. Overall, the observed patterns are consistent with a framework in which intergenerational support overall and the types of support flows to family members with greater relative needs of the particular type, and thus more in line with the altruism, but rather less so with reciprocity (broadly defined as conditional giving and providing support either short or long term). The patterns, however, are also consistent with the status reproduction hypothesis whereby parents may be striving to offset the welfare losses associated with downwards mobility of their offspring.