The Study Of Family Economic Support To The Elderly Under Intergenerational Solidarity Model

Result from the rapid population ageing process and the limited public resource which can be used for developing elderly social welfare,Chinese family is still playing the vital role in economically supporting the elderly.Selecting the Chinese elderly aged over 60 years old with non-coresident adult children as research object,our research tries to investigate the current situation and influential factors of family economic support to the elderly nationwide;in addition,be aware of the binary development of urban and rural China,our research will move a step further and detect the difference of family economic support to the elderly between rural and urban area.The first wave of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS 2011-2012)is used in this research for quantitative analysis.Using Logistic regression model and OLS regression model,we discuss how the elderly's need structure(age,health,marital-gender status,education,household income,pension,etc.),family structure(number of non-coresident children,family living structure),cultural-contextual structure(rural/urban difference),and intergenerational support exchange(providing economic support to non-coresident children,provide grandchild care,etc.)can influence the probability and amount of family economic support received by the elderly.The final results show us that family economic support to the elderly is common in China,and there are obvious rural/urban differences.According to the research,more than half of the Chinese elderly have received economic support from their non-coresident children.And,even though higher percentage of rural elderly has received family support than urban old people,the urban elderly received higher amount.Whether the elderly can receive family economic support or not can be influenced by a lot of variables.Among all of our research object,the elderly with more obvious need structure(older,single old lady,without pension,and receive economic support from non-coresident relatives/friends)and more supportive family structure(more non-coresident children,without coresident children),the elderly from rural area,and the elderly who have provided grandchild care have higher probability for receiving family economic support.The amount of family economic support can also be influenced by the elderly's need structure,family structure,rural/urban difference,and intergenerational support exchange.Even though all of these structures are useful in explaining family economic support in rural and urban China,the specific explain factors can be different in either area.Based on our research,we suggest the government to adjust fertility policy and relax the one-child policy further,and we also think that it is necessary for the government to develop the elderly social welfare by improving the coverage and replacement rate of pension insurance and medical insurance.Because of the restriction of data and researcher's capability,this research has some limitations.In order to perfect this research,we should further investigate the following research issues:by means of adjusting analyzing level,introduce adult children's opportunity structure into the analysis and investigate its influence;based on the specific characteristics of the urban elderly,detect a more suitable analysis model for them,so as to increase the explanatory power of our analysis;and investigate the influence of people's welfare attitude and the elderly's subjective need on family economic support.