Money for him but books for her: The impact of children's gender and adulthood on household savings in China

Abstract

We examine the impact of chilren's gender and adulthood on household savings decisions in the context of China's demographic transition. Using a nationwide survey dataset, we find that the positive correlation between sons and savings can be attributed to greater investment in education for adult daughters. This result is mainly driven by low-educated and uninsured families. This paper emphasizes the source of gender differences in intra-household resource allocation and sheds light upon the trade-off between savings and human capital investments for offsprings.