The Elderly and Old Age Support in Rural China

Cai, Fang; Giles, John; O’Keefe, Philip; Wang, Dewen

doi:10.1596/978-0-8213-8685-9

Cited by 130 publications

(120 citation statements)

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“…According to the most recent census, in 2010 there were 178 million people aged over 60 and 119 million over 65, accounting for 13.3% and 8.9% of total population in China, respectively; about 60 percent of them live in rural areas. Despite China's high economic growth during the past three decades, the rural elderly remain poorer and more vulnerable than the urban elderly, due to the large rural-urban disparity, low savings, lack of pension support, and heavy reliance on family support (Cai et al, 2012). The estimated poverty rate for rural elderly was around 20 percent in 2006, much higher than that for urban elderly in China (Cai et al, 2009;Park et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the increasing mass rural-to-urban migration and shrinking family size inevitably have eroded the foundation of the Chinese traditional intergenerational support system. For example, data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey show that the share of rural elderly living with adult children has dropped from nearly 70 percent in 1991 to just over 40 percent in 2006 (Cai et al, 2012).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The heterogeneous impact of pension income on elderly living arrangements: evidence from China’s new rural pension scheme

et al. 2017

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 9116 June 2015 ABSTRACTThe Heterogeneous Impact of Pension Income on Elderly Living Arrangements: Evidence from China's New Rural Pension Scheme * This paper investigates the impact of pension income on living arrangements of the elderly. Taking advantage of a unique opportunity due to the recent establishment and expansion of the social pension system in rural China, we explicitly address the endogeneity of pension status and income through a fixed-effect model with instrumental variable approach by exploiting exogenous time variation in the program implementation at county level. We find an overall positive effect of pension income on independent living as well as considerable heterogeneity. The elderly with easy access to their adult children, possessing higher financial capacity, in less long-term care and psychological need, and having more education are more likely to live independently after receiving pension income. Our results confirm that independent living is a normal good, but highlight that living arrangement is multidimensional in rural China. JEL Classification:J12, H55, I38

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

The heterogeneous impact of pension income on elderly living arrangements: evidence from China’s new rural pension scheme

et al. 2017

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“…For instance, even with recent developments of the mortgage markets in the late nineties, household debt and mortgage debt (as a share of GDP) are still remarkably low-amounting to only 12% and 11% of GDP in 2008, respectively, about 1/8 of the levels observed in the U.S.. 14 These imminent reforms-spanning from fertility policies, pension reforms, to finan- 12 In 2005, only 4.7% of the elderly's income came from pension in rural areas. This is in contrast to the 45.4% in urban areas, with a large heterogeneity among urban workers (Cai et al (2012)). 13 The one-child policy is strictly enforced in urban areas and less so in rural areas.…”

Section: The Chinese Contextmentioning

confidence: 80%

“…Older people might also remain active for longer in response to a fall in support from children at retirement. Cai et al (2012) show that this is particularly relevant for rural areas, because the lack of social safety nets compels individuals in their sixties to rely still heavily on their labor income. In urban areas, according to UHS data, labor income is a negligible fraction of income for individuals above 60, and retirement ages are strictly 31 According to data from the Bureau of China Statistics (2012), the per capita higher education tuition and fees continued to increase over time.…”

Section: Sensitivity Analysis and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fertility Policies and Social Security Reforms in China

Coeurdacier¹,

Guibaud²,

Jin³

2014

IMF Econ Rev

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This paper analyzes the impact of relaxing fertility controls and expanding social security in China. We develop an overlapping generations model in which fertility decisions and capital accumulation are endogenously determined in the presence of social security. In our model, children are an alternative savings technology-as they transfer resources to their retired parents. Important feedback links arise between fertility and social security variables: an expansion of social security benefits reduces fertility-partially offsetting the effects of relaxing the one-child policy. The feedback loop between social security variables and fertility suggests that abandoning fertility restrictions may not be as effective in helping to finance China's intended pension reform, especially if children are an important source of old-age support. The sustainability of the pension system is particularly at risk in the event of a growth slowdown. The objective of pension reforms may also be incongruent with other reforms, such as financial liberalization and financial integration.

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“…In terms of the rural old-age pension, ample research has recorded how family-dependent old-age care in Chinese rural regions evolved to social pension systems (F. Cai & World Bank, 2012). The new rural pension insurance, implemented in October 2009, is funded simply by individual contributions and government subsidies.…”

Section: Rural-urban Dual Welfare Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the implementation gap of China’s urban pension scheme at the level of rural-urban migrant workers

Wang¹

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China has recently undergone extensive reforms in its basic urban old-age pension policy, which intends to benefit all urban workers, including internal rural-to-urban migrant workers. In 2011, the Social Security Law, the first comprehensive law of China attempting to remedy social inequality, came into force. China has established pension schemes for both rural and urban workers.All workers employed in urban regions are entitled to the urban pension scheme, which offers pension benefits based on the cost of living in cities. However, implementation of the system and loopholes in the legislation have resulted in very low participation by migrant workers in the basic urban old-age pension scheme. As of the end of 2013, the migrant worker coverage rate of the oldage pension scheme remained less than 20% (NBS, 2014a). This gives rise to the following question: What implementation gaps hinder migrant workers from taking up this old-age scheme?Implementation gaps may occur throughout the entire policy implementation process, in which stakeholders at all levels (including policy makers, bureaucrats and recipients) play a role in the success of the policy. This thesis examined the implementation gap in the urban pension scheme at the bottom level, where rural-urban migrant workers constitute the potential recipients.Conceptualised using Mazmanian and Sabatier's (1983) implementation theory and the theory of bounded rationality, the study focused on factors that influenced migrant workers' intentions to join the urban old-age pension scheme and their perceptions of taking up the scheme.The research adopted a mixed-method approach with quantitative survey and qualitative interview data collected and analysed sequentially.In Phase 1, over 200 migrant workers were surveyed in Shenzhen, China, on their understanding of the urban pension scheme (including their intentions to join) and on factors that might influence their intentions to join (individual, land, settlement, and employment). Bivariate analysis and multiple regression models were used to statistically examine the main factors that influenced migrant workers' intentions to join the scheme. This analysis showed that workers' settlement plans (the likelihood to settle in cities and the decision to go back to their rural iii hometown) and land expropriation experience significantly influenced the intention to participate in the urban pension system. Furthermore, approximately 85% of survey participants did not understand the basics of the urban old-age pension scheme.Phase 2 consisted of semi-structured interviews with 12 migrant workers, which were designed to explore their perceptions of joining the urban old-age pension scheme. Based on preliminary results from the quantitative study, six migrant workers with land expropriation experience and six without were selected from the survey participants. Interview transcripts were subjected to thematic analysis. The rich elaborations in these interviews provided a detailed picture of the processes by which migra...

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The Elderly and Old Age Support in Rural China

Cited by 130 publications

References 54 publications

The heterogeneous impact of pension income on elderly living arrangements: evidence from China’s new rural pension scheme

The heterogeneous impact of pension income on elderly living arrangements: evidence from China’s new rural pension scheme

Fertility Policies and Social Security Reforms in China

Understanding the implementation gap of China’s urban pension scheme at the level of rural-urban migrant workers

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