The Impact of Social Pensions on Intergenerational Relationships: Comparative Evidence from China

Xi Chen, Karen Eggleston and Ang Sun ()
Additional contact information
Ang Sun: Central University of Finance and Economics

No 10731, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: China launched a new rural pension scheme (hereafter NRPS) for rural residents in 2009, now covering almost all counties with over 400 million people enrolled. This implementation of the largest social pension program in the world offers a unique setting for studying the economics of intergenerational relationships during development, given the rapidity of China's population aging, traditions of filial piety and co-residence, decreasing number of children, and dearth of formal social security, at a relatively low income level. We draw on rich household surveys from two provinces at distinct development stages – impoverished Guizhou and relatively well-off Shandong – to better understand heterogeneity in the impact of pension benefits. Employing a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we find that around the pension eligibility age cut-off, the NRPS significantly reduces intergenerational co-residence, especially between elderly parents and their adults sons; promotes pensioners' healthcare service consumption; and weakens (but does not supplant) nonpecuniary and pecuniary transfers across three generations. These effects are much larger in less developed Guizhou province.

Keywords: coresidence; regional comparisons; intergenerational relationships; social pensions; old-age care; service consumption; transfers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H55 I18 J14 R28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2017-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-cna, nep-pbe and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Published - published in: Journal of the Economics of Ageing, 2018, 12, 225 -235

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp10731.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The impact of social pensions on intergenerational relationships: Comparative evidence from China (2018)
Working Paper: The Impact of Social Pensions on Intergenerational Relationships: Comparative Evidence from China (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10731

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().