| Private transfer payments happen between family members, friends and neighbors, including cash and non-cash forms. Intergenerational transfers are an important form of private transfers. In China, due to the traditional filial piety culture and the imperfect social security system, private transfers are usually from children to parents. Family cares is still main method that plenty old people rely on, therefore family pension is an important aspect that cannot be ignored in Chinese pension business. Financial support from children is the main form of family pension for elderly. Do altruistic motives or exchange motives lead to the intergenerational transfers? Are there any regional and urban-rural differences of across intergenerational transfers? Whether the heterogeneity of the elderly affects the financial support they receive? In-depth study of these issues can provide a reference for the government to formulate pension policy; meanwhile it is helpful to study family behavior from aspects of demography and sociology.The thesis includes five sections:Chapterl.Introduction.This section introduces the background and significance of the topic, concept definition, research method, innovation and shortages. Chaper2.Literature review. These sections sorts out and summarize relative literatures from all angles.Chapter3.Research design. This section describes the classical theoretical models, data sources, variable definitions and empirical models. Chaper4.Empirical analysis. Firstly, provides sample descriptive statistics. Then employs Heckman two-step method for the total sample and sub-samples regression for empirical analysis. Finally, in order to ensure the robustness of the results, robustness tests for the total sample and urban and rural samples are generated. Chapter5.Conclusions and recommendations. From the perspective of the empirical results, a number of policy recommendations for the development of China’s pension business is provided.The finding suggests that, in China, family intergenerational transfer motivation is mixed. Altruistic motives and exchange motives are both reflected, but exchange motive on the whole. There is a positive correlation between children’s financial support for their parents and parents’ income level. The value of the property and the scale of children’s financial support for their parents have a significant positive impact. The elderly who take care of grandchildren, have higher level of education children can get more financial support. This supports the hypothesis of exchange motive. Children with higher income levels will increase transfer payments to parents, so that parents can also benefit from it. This is in line with the altruistic motivation hypothesis. A larger number of children and living with their children can reduce children’s financial support. Distance of residence has a significant positive correlation the scale of children’s financial support for their parents. Children use financial support instead of time to take care of their parents. So the spiritual needs of the elderly require children’s attention.The sub sample empirical study suggests that, the motives of Intergenerational financial support from children to parents are different across regions. Parents with more children get less financial support, especially in the countryside. It is more likely to shirk responsibility among children in the countryside. An important factor in the level of income of their children is for parents to limit children in rural areas to provide economic support. Lower income levels constrain children to provide more financial support to their parents. The educations, health, whether taking care of grandchildren or not significantly affect the amount of financial support that the elderly female can receive from their children. For separated, divorced or widowed elderly parents, compared with those who married and living with the spouse, the financial support they receive are mostly affected by their individual characteristics. |
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