Research On The Impact Of Basic Pension Insurance For Urban And Rural Residents On Family Intergenerational Support

Based on the background of the global population aging,the issue of old-age support has become increasingly prominent,and it has become a focus of global attention and a social problem that needs to be solved urgently.China has the largest elderly population in the world,while its economic development foundation is not abundant enough to cope with the pressure of such a scale of old-age support.Therefore,in the medium to long term in the future,our economic and social development will be restricted by the problem of population aging.Pension insurance is an important means to deal with population aging,after active exploration in the construction of the old-age security system in recent years,China has established a multilevel old-age security system with Basic Pension Insurance for Urban and Rural Residents and Urban Employee Basic Pension Insurance as the core,and has achieved world-renowned achievements.However,there are still some problems such as large gaps in benefits levels caused by system division.For the beneficiary with the Residents' Insurance,the pension benefits level is too low,the replacement rate is much lower than that of the Employees' Insurance,thus the old-age security function is limited.In addition,when considering subjective old-age beliefs,the main expectation of the elderly is family support,and the expectation of relying on social support is very low.Therefore,for the residents with Residents' Insurance,whether from the perspective of rational choice in a realistic situation or from the perspective of subjective willingness,family old-age support is still the core of the old-age support system.In this context,it is of great practical significance to study the relationship between Basic Pension Insurance for Urban and Rural Residents and family old-age support,and then put forward policy recommendations accordingly to improve the ability of pension protection.Regarding the research on the relationship between social pension and family old-age support,the existing research still has some shortcomings.For example,the existing research on family old-age support focused on a single dimension such as economic support or living arrangements,but the other dimensions of inter-generational support were ignored,such as daily care and grandchild care.Besides,there was little literature focusing on mutual inter-generational support,thus the important role of the elderly parents as resource providers was ignored.Based on this background,this research will study the impact of Basic Pension Insurance for Urban and Rural Residents on the mutual inter-generational support between parents and child(focusing on economic support and time support),reveal the impact of the insurance on the family resources reallocation,and explain the impact and mechanism of the pension insurance on family inter-generational relations,then,put forward corresponding policy recommendations based on the research conclusions,which is of great practical significance for further perfecting the system design and improving the welfare of residents.In addition,by exploring the behavioral path of mutual inter-generational support between parent and child,it can provide an improved direction for formulating a complete family pension policy,and achieve precise and efficient policy effects.The data used in this research comes from Chinese Family Panel Survey(2016),taking elderly parents aged 60 and above and their adult children who have finished school as the research objects,after excluding samples with missing key variables,2837 elderly people are obtained,and then matching the elderly with their children,3577 paired observations are obtained finally.Econometrics,statistics method,and qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis methods are used to study the following issues: First,explore the impact of Basic Pension Insurance for Urban and Rural Residents on the intergenerational support provided by parents;Second,explore the impact of the insurance on the intergenerational support provided by child;Third,carry out research on the mutual inter-generational balance and the effect of the insurance;Fourth,on the basis of the previous research results,further research and discussion will be carried out on the insurance and family old-age support.The main conclusions include:First,Basic Pension Insurance for Urban and Rural Residents does has a significant impact on parents' support to their child.From the perspective of economic support,the impact of the insurance on parents' financial support to their child shows a significant difference between registered rural sample and registered urban sample: in the rural sample,the marginal effect of the insurance on the probability and amount of financial support provided by parents to their child is positive,not statistically significant though,while in the urban sample,the marginal effect is significantly positive.From the perspective of time support,among the three types of samples: rural,urban and full sample,participating in the insurance is associated with a significant higher probability and quantity of the time support of the parents.Further,by exploring the mechanism of the insurance,it is found that the pension income relaxes parents' financial constraints,then reduces their labor supply,and thus increases time support for their child.Second,Basic Pension Insurance for Urban and Rural Residents does has a significant impact on child' support to the parents.From the perspective of economic support,the impact of the insurance on child' financial support to their parents shows an significant difference between registered rural sample and registered urban sample:in the rural sample,the effect of the insurance on the the probability of providing financial support to parents is significantly positive,but the impact on the quantity of financial support is not significant;in the urban sample,the marginal effects are both significantly negative.From the perspective of time support,among the three types of samples: rural,urban and full sample,participation in the insurance is associated with a significant higher probability and quantity of the time support of the child.Further,by exploring the mechanism of the insurance,it is found that the parents' pension income can make up for the loss of labor income caused by the time support provided by the child,thereby attracting more time support from the child.Third,whether it is from the perspective of parents or from the perspective of mutual inter-generational support,there is a big imbalance in inter-generational support,and the effect of the insurance on the improvement of inter-generational support imbalance is heterogeneous.The imbalance of intergenerational support from the two perspectives both have a significant negative impact on the life satisfaction of the elderly,and it is mainly reflected in the sample of those who has only a child.The effect of the insurance on the improvement of intergenerational support imbalance is mainly reflected in the dimension of economic support,and is mainly reflected in the sample with only one child and the rural sample.Fourth,based on the heterogeneous results in the the above research,for example,the impact of the insurance on intergenerational economic support shows significant difference between urban and rural samples,is it because of the difference in the level of pension benefits of urban and rural residents? The number of children has a heterogeneous effect on the intergenerational support behavior of children,does it affect the family's old-age security ability? The time support behavior of parents and children will have different effects due to the marital status of parents,and so on.further research was conducted on these issues.The results suggest that,first of all,it is found that the higher the pension benefit level,the more financial support parents provide for their child,and the less financial support the child provide for their parents;Besides,the increase in pension benefit level will enhance the elderly's confidence in life,and thus improve their life satisfaction.Meanwhile,it is found that the increase in the number of child may not necessarily improve the family's old-age support capabilities,because the child's education level and the intensity of supervision and restraint between child will both affect the child's inter-generational support behavior.In addition,by grouping the parents' marital status,it was found that the elderly reflects important production function: the elderly can not only provide life care for their spouses,but also provide grandchild care for their children together with their spuose.Therefore,the role of elderly parents in providing resources for family cannot be ignored.Based on the above main research conclusions,this article puts forward the following policy suggestions: First,increase financial support for Basic Pension Insurance for Urban and Rural Residents and optimize funding mechanisms to improve the benefits level of the pension insurance,thus improve their life confidence and subjective welfare,and jointly establish a system barrier together with family old-age support for the elderly;gradually narrow the benefit gap between Basic Pension Insurance for Urban and Rural Residents and Urban Employee Basic Pension Insurance,and thus reduce the negative impact resulting from system division.Second,increase publicity and education on the core status of family care for the elderly,learn from foreign excellent experience,such as providing subsidies for child who provide support for the elderly,to increase the enthusiasm of child to provide support,thus provide institutional guarantees for the elderly to enjoy their old age.Third,increase investment and publicity in National Basic Public Health Service Projects,manage and intervene the health of middle-aged and elderly people as early as possible to improve the health of the elderly,thus improve the productive function of the elderly.Besides,improve community(village)elderly care services and facilities,encourage local old-age care,to provide conditions for the elderly to perform their productive functions.Fourth,strengthen fiscal and taxation support,such as tax relief,financial subsidies,etc.,to encourage and guide residents to participate in commercial pension insurance,and build a coordinated multilevel pension insurance system.