Working Away from Home, Elder-care Patterns and Left-behind Parents' Happiness
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| Title | Working Away from Home, Elder-care Patterns and Left-behind Parents' Happiness
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| Author | Zhou Yahong and Sun Jisheng |
| Organization | School of Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics |
| Email | yahong.zhou@mail.shufe.edu.cn；sun_jisheng@126.com |
| Key Words | Elder-care Patterns; Happiness; Migration |
| Abstract | China has a serious population aging problem, and what's worse, China is getting old before it gets rich. Under such a background, it is of great practical significance to assess the impacts of elder-care patterns on the happiness of Chinese elderly. In contrast with the existing literature, this paper notes that China has a special situation which is the large population migration, and the migration of adult children has impacts on the choice of elder-care patterns and the happiness of left-behind parents. Considering that the choice of elder-care patterns and left-behind parents' happiness may be affected by the same unobserved variables, it may be endogenous. Using the 2013 data of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), and using the endogenous treatment effect model, respectively depict the selection equation of elder-care patterns, the result equation of left-behind parents' happiness, and the correlativity of unobserved variables from the two equations. Empirical research analysis found that: (1) adult children's migration has a positive impact on left-behind parents' happiness; (2) compared with living alone, living with adult children can increase the probability of left-behind parents' happiness by about 39.36 percentage points. These empirical results can provide an empirical basis for how to improve the well-being of the elderly and to construct a more scientific and reasonable pension system. |
| Serial Number | WP1428 |
| Time | 2019-10-24 |
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