Partners stimulate each other’s informal helping behavior: evidence from a longitudinal study

Objective: This paper examines to what extent one’s partner’s informal helping behavior stimulates informal helping behavior of the other partner and to what extent this partner effect differs by gender. Differences in informal help given to kin and non-kin are explored.Background: Although prior research has suggested that partners influence each other’s (informal) helping behavior, these mostly cross-sectional studies did not account for possible selection effects. The present study takes a longitudinal approach to examine whether the partner’s helping behavior changes informal helping over time, thereby diminishing the impact of selection, and allowing for a more stringent test of partner influence.Method: Using three waves of dyadic data from the Swiss Household Panel (2013, 2016, 2019) (N = 9,666), we employ fixed-effects logistic regression analysis to eliminate between-person differences. To facilitate interpretation of the effects, we estimate average logit elasticities.Results: People whose partner started engaging in informal helping had a higher likelihood of providing informal help. This relationship did not differ between men and women but was stronger for help to kin than to help to non-kin.Conclusion: Findings suggest that the relationship between partners’ (informal) helping behavior is not solely due to selection effects but is at least partly the result of partner influence. New questions surface about differences between help between kin and non-kin.