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Publication Date

2022-05-09

First Advisor

Maggie Liu

Second Advisor

Lucie Schmidt

Document Type

Honors Project

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics

Keywords

New rural pension scheme, China, intergenerational support, transfers, pensions

Abstract

With the introduction of the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) to provide a safety net for the elderly in rural China, pension coverage has increased dramatically in the last decade. The NRPS introduces an interesting question as to what extent public transfer impacts traditional private transfer within the family. This paper utilizes four waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to examine how the NRPS receipts impact intergenerational support, including transfers and emotional support. The results of my regression discontinuity design show evidence that public transfers derived from the NRPS significantly crowd in downstream transfers and emotional support within the family. Heterogeneous analysis by income group indicates that the crowding-in effect on downstream transfers persists for low-income families but becomes crowding-out for middle-income families. There are also different effects on emotional support by income group; high-income families are expected to have fewer weekly contacts. In addition, there are significant effects by parental marital status on emotional support; households with two married parents are associated with more emotional support. The findings provide suggestive evidence that the NRPS program has a positive impact on the intended beneficiaries' intergenerational behavior and this strengthens family solidarity.

Rights

©2022 Zixuan Zhang. Access limited to the Smith College community and other researchers while on campus. Smith College community members also may access from off-campus using a Smith College log-in. Other off-campus researchers may request a copy through Interlibrary Loan for personal use.

Language

English

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