What are the intergenerational resource transfer contributions of parents and non-parents in Europe? Using National Transfer Accounts and National Time Transfer Accounts for twelve countries around 2010, we go beyond public transfers (net taxes) to also value two statistically much less visible transfer types in the family realm: of market goods (money) and of unpaid household labour (time). Non-parents contribute almost exclusively to public transfers. But parents additionally provide still larger private transfers: mothers mainly time, fathers mainly money. Estimating transfer stocks over the working life, the average parental/non-parental contribution ratio flips from 0.73 (public transfers alone) to 2.66 (all three transfers combined). The tax rates implicitly imposed thereby on rearing children are multiples of the value-added tax rates in place on consumption goods. The magnitude of these invisible transfer asymmetries carries multiple implications for policy debates. For instance, it raises the question whether European societies unwittingly tax their own reproduction too heavily.

We have not collected data but utilized the European microdata infrastructure. Specifically, we used the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), the harmonized European Household Budget Surveys (HBS), the Harmonized European Time Use Survey (HETUS), and for health-related data, the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS). These comparative datasets are collected by the national statistical agencies of the Member States of the European Union (EU) under the supervision of the EU’s statistical agency, Eurostat. The protocols of the surveys in question go through ethical checks concerning information and consent of respondents as well as
anonymization of released data.

Macro data used in this paper can be downloaded from the site of the statistical agency of the European Union, Eurostat. Variable names are indicated in the paper. Microdata are publicly available upon request from Eurostat, (contact via ESTATMicrodata-access@ec.europa.eu) but cannot be transferred to a third party. To apply for access to Eurostat's microdata, a researcher's organization must first be recognized as a research entity “ a university, research institution, or research department in a public administration, bank, statistical institute, etc. Applications for research entity recognition should be sent to ESTATENTITIESASSESSMENT@ec.europa.eu.

A full replication package, including codes, is provisionally available at
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MKuwxXE_erfSeo3o-Hv6FK_HZo8rR3cU?usp=sharing

and this will accompany the paper as an additional supplementary material upon acceptance.