Abstract
Worldwide, older people’s support used to be the adult children’s responsibility. In China, two generations after introducing the one-child policy in the late 70-ies, this becomes an increasingly demanding obligation. The Chinese government took the responsibility to mitigating old- age poverty risks and realized unprecedented progress in pension coverage. At the same time, the household savings increased to about 30 % of disposable income. Built on previous research on the politics of ageing, this study analyses households responses to the established governmental and firm pension programs as well as to the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS), introduced in 2009. The central question is: will participation in the established and new pension programs lead to higher current Chinese household expenditures and therefore to lower savings? The China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) dataset of 2011 offered the opportunity to study the influence of the recently introduced NRPS. We find that Chinese households with members between 45 and 60 years who expect future benefits of NRPS do not have higher expenditures than those not covered by NRPS. For the participants in the established, mostly urban pension programs a correlation was found with higher current expenditures (28 % more spending on basic needs, 80 % more on luxury) However, further analysis shows that this correlation cannot be interpreted as a causal relationship. This implies that coverage by pensions, be it in urban or rural programs, does not determine higher current expenditures and lower savings.
Highlights
Over the past two centuries, the family care system changed in a wider geographical context
The results for the OLS regression reveal that there is a positive association between participation in a government or firm pension program and current household expenditures on necessities
Chinese household savings are with about 30 %, one of the world’s highest savings rates
Summary
Over the past two centuries, the family care system changed in a wider geographical context. In Asia, demographic changes, declining birthrates, changing gender roles, urbanization, and the HIV/aids pandemic are the main drivers of change of the family care system (Binstock et al 2006, Schaie and Uhlenberg 2007; Jackson et al 2008). The quality of living in China is steadily advancing, poverty has declined, the average life expectancy has increased from less than 60 years in 1990 to almost 75 years today (CIA Factbook 2012). The average retirement age in China today is 60 for men and 50–55 years for women. These demographic, as well as the economic changes, have been heavily influenced by the one-child policy. What are the implications for the wellbeing of (future) older people if support can no longer be fully provided by the family?
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