The Heterogeneous Effect of Parental Investment on Old-Age Support: Only Children As the Main Caregivers in China

Abstract

In an era of rapid aging and shrinking family sizes, only children have gradually become the main providers of old-age support. China offers a unique opportunity to investigate old-age support provision in one-child families due to its strict family planning policies. Using four-wave panel data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we ask whether old-age support in one-child families is more or less motivated by parental investments than in multi-child families. Results show a coexistence of fairness maintenance thesis and singleton compensation thesis: children’s returns to parents in one-child families are weakly motivated by their parents’ large-sum investments, but strongly motivated by parental daily transfers. In one-child families, sons are more obliged to provide old-age support in return for parental transfers than are daughters. The policy implications for old-age support provision in an aging society with a declining family size are also discussed.