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Family Support and Elderly Well-being in China: Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study

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Abstract

Rapid demographic change, economic growth, and evolving social norms have put increasing pressure on the traditional system of filial piety and family-based eldercare in China. This paper examines the current role of intergenerational transfers in providing old-age support using nationally representative data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. The analysis explores varied modes of care that exist in rural and urban areas, as well as the role of internal migration in influencing methods of old-age support. The results paint a rich description of the contemporary dynamics between filial obligations and economic development.

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Notes

  1. Based on the official poverty threshold of 2300 yuan.

  2. Lei et al. (2012) uses a sample of 800 households from the 2008 CHARLS pilot survey collected in Gansu and Zhejiang provinces in preparation for the 2011 national baseline analyzed in this paper.

  3. Note that these numbers mask the discrepancy of what “pension” means in terms of expected financial support to an urban versus rural resident.

  4. This implies transfers within the household between adults and their co-resident children are beyond the scope of this analysis.

  5. Note that “in-kind” refers to physical goods such as grain and cooking oil and does not include time transfers.

  6. CHARLS defines irregular transfers as those given at Spring Festival, and/or Mid-Autumn Festival, birthdays, weddings, funerals, or other idiosyncratic times.

  7. Alternative definitions of “migrants” based on differing distances from the parents produce consistent results throughout.

  8. These include agreeing or disagreeing with statements such as “I was bothered by things that don’t usually bother me.”

  9. Excluding running 1 km from the definition of the ADL marker does not change the regression results that follow.

  10. Heart disease includes heart attacks, coronary heart disease, angina, congestive heart failure, or additional heart problems.

  11. The results are consistent with using a conditional-logit model to constrain the predicted probability of receipt of transfers between zero and one.

  12. Figures 1 and 2 are nonparametric plots generated with local Epanechnikov kernel smoothing using a rule-of-thumb bandwidth. Alternative kernels or bandwidth produce figures consistent with those shown here.

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Acknowledgments

This paper has benefited greatly from discussions with Hong Zhang and Jeanne Shea.

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  1. Departments of Economics, East Asian, and Global Studies, Colby College, 5243 Mayflower Hill, Waterville, ME, 04901, USA

    Daniel LaFave

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Correspondence to Daniel LaFave.

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LaFave, D. Family Support and Elderly Well-being in China: Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. Ageing Int 42, 142–158 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12126-016-9268-0

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