The Intergenerational Transmission of Welfare Dependency

Abstract

Exploiting rich administrative data from Norway, we estimate nonparametric bounds around the average causal effect of parental welfare participation on children's welfare participation for children that grew up in welfare-dependent families. We find upper bounds well below the intergenerational association and substantially below available LATE estimates in the literature.

Our results show that a substantial portion of the observed intergenerational correlation in welfare dependency is due to correlated characteristics and that there is important heterogeneity in the intergenerational spillovers both between different welfare programmes, and between children of marginal and average welfare participants.