Grandfathers and Grandsons: Social Security Expansion and Child Health in China

Jinyang Yang and Xi Chen

No 1503, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: We examine the multi-generational association of a nationwide social pension program in China, the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS). NRPS was rolled out on full scale in 2012, and rural enrollees over the age of 60 are eligible to receive an average of 102 CNY non-contributory monthly pension. We leverage age eligibility and variations in pension receipt to identify the intergenerational associations between NRPS and health among grandchildren. We find NRPS substantially increases child weight without impacting height. Overall, the child BMI z score increases by 0.87, which is largely driven by grandfathers' pension receipt raising rates of overweight and obesity among grandsons. Among the potential mechanisms, our findings are more plausibly explained by a mixture of income increase, knowledge bias of co-residing grandparents on childcare, and son preference. Potential biases from differential reporting of primary caregivers and epigenetic transmissions unlikely drive our findings.

Keywords: Social pension; Child health; Inter-generational relationship; Intra-household allocation; Migration; Living arrangement; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 H31 H55 I38 J22 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-cna, nep-hea and nep-pbe
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Related works:
Working Paper: Grandfathers and Grandsons: Social Security Expansion and Child Health in China (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:1503

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