Research On The Influence Of Parents’ Financial Asset Investment On Offspring Fertility Decision-Making

The ultra-low fertility rate has become a major challenge facing the Chinese society.The effect of stimulating the fertility rate simply relying on the relaxation of the fertility policy is relatively limited.It is also necessary to explore the supporting measures to improve the fertility intention from the real constraints of intergenerational distribution of family resources of childbearing age.At the same time,the increase of the elderly population has put forward more stringent requirements for the operation mode of pension finance and the construction of multi-level pension system.The family may need to bear more responsibility for the pension care and economic support.The pressure of filial piety and care for the young is an extremely important factor in the decision-making of every family of childbearing age.Grasping the key point of filial piety and nursery care at the same time can not only provide ideas for effectively improving our fertility rate,but also provide support for strengthening the family development ability.From the perspective of filial piety and nursery care superimposed pressure,it is more in line with the real constraints faced by childbearing families,fully explains the intergenerational influence of childbearing decisions,and widens the research dimension of influencing factors of childbearing decisions.Based on the above background,this paper uses the micro data of the China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)to investigate the intergenerational impact of parents’ financial asset investment on their children’s childbearing decisions from the perspective of the superimposed pressure on childbearing families.The results show that compared with nonparticipation in formal financial asset investment,the probability of children’s childbearing will be significantly increased by 5-7 percentage points,indicating that children will decide whether to have children according to the support pressure of their parents,to relieve the combined pressure of filial piety and care for the young.At the same time,parental participation in informal household asset allocation was not found to have this effect.In terms of mechanism,parents’ participation in formal financial asset investment may lead to pension security and self-pension planning ability stimulated,which can reduce the economic support from their children,thus reducing the crowding out effect of filial piety on childcare and improving the fertility probability of their children.The intergenerational effect of parents’ participation in formal financial asset investment on child reproduction is more obvious in the children whose husbands do not participate in child rearing,women work in non-state sector,work units do not provide maternity insurance,and the opportunity cost of childbirth is higher,which has a greater promoting effect.This study finds that,under the circumstances of increasing child-rearing pressure and high reproductive opportunity cost,parents’ participation in formal financial asset investment for self-care has an obvious "spillover effect".The third pillar of pension construction relying on financial means can not only guarantee the welfare level of the elderly,but also objectively increase the fertility rate.Based on the above conclusions,this paper puts forward the following suggestions: First,accelerate the construction of the third pillar for the elderly and reduce the cost of filial piety.Second,improve social childcare services to reduce the pressure on families of childbearing age.Third,pay attention to women’s social welfare and ease the penalty of female fertility.