Unequal bequests

Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we make two contributions to the literature on end-of-life transfers. First, we show that unequal bequests are much more prevalent than generally recognized, with more than one-third of parents with wills planning to divide their estates unequally among their children. Plans for unequal division are particularly concentrated in “weak relationships”, i.e., families with stepchildren and families with genetic children with whom parents have limited or no contact. Second, we find that many older Americans have no wills. Although the probability of having a will increases with age, 30 percent of individuals aged 70 plus are without a will and, of the HRS respondents who died between 1995 and 2012, nearly 40 percent died intestate.