Reciprocity in Upward Intergenerational Support over the Life Course: Navigating Death, Inheritance, and Widowhood

Objectives: Reciprocity is central to understanding support exchanges between parents and children across the life course. While earlier parental financial transfers to children often predict greater upward support in later life, little is known about whether lump-sum transfers at a parent’s death (i.e., inheritance) influence children’s support for the surviving parent. This study examines whether inheritance distribution affects adult children’s support for widowed mothers, applying a reciprocity framework to test direct, relative, and anticipatory reciprocity.

Methods: Using Waves 1–9 of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we analyzed 1,151 adult children of 316 widowed mothers in South Korea whose late husbands left any inheritance. Key predictors included each child’s inheritance receipt, their share relative to siblings, and whether mothers inherited the full estate. Multilevel models estimated the effects of these inheritance measures and their interactions with mothers’ functional impairment on upward support in early widowhood, measured as structural (coresidence), instrumental, and financial support. Interactions with the child’s gender were also examined.

Results: Larger inheritance shares to a child were associated with a higher likelihood of coresidence and greater financial support to widowed mothers in early widowhood. Relative inheritance, compared to siblings’ shares, was more predictive than receipt alone. Sons who received inheritance were less likely than daughters to coreside with widowed mothers. When mothers inherited the full estate, children were more likely to provide caregiving, but only when mothers had functional impairments.

Implications: These findings support reciprocity as a mechanism in intergenerational exchanges and highlight the understudied role of inheritance distribution in shaping post-widowhood support. Relative reciprocity appears more influential than direct reciprocity, while anticipatory reciprocity operates primarily under conditions of health decline. Inheritance patterns within families not only redistribute resources but also influence the dynamics of parent–child relationships in later life.