Brothers, sisters, and support to older parents: separate spheres across and within support types?

Christine Ho and Kathleen McGarry

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Adult children, especially sons, are often considered a linchpin of support to older parents in many patriarchal societies. We develop a model of transfers from adult children to older parents as existing in separate spheres depending on the child’s gender and type of transfer. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we find strong evidence of such differentiation. Coresidential support comes almost exclusively from sons as do large transfers, while daughters are more likely to make smaller transfers. Interestingly, crowding-out of financial transfers by siblings occurs primarily within gender: sons give less when they have more brothers but not when they have more sisters, and daughters give less when they have more sisters but not when they have more brothers. This pattern is present for both in-kind and cash transfers, suggesting that support from adult children may not be substitutable between genders, even for relatively fungible currencies.

Keywords: gendered public goods; old age support; separate spheres; son preference; AAM requested (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J13 J14 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-02-07
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Published in Journal of Population Economics, 7, February, 2025, 38(1). ISSN: 0933-1433

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