Research On The Effect Of Intergenerational Care On The Labor Supply Of Middle-aged And Elderly Women

With the deepening of the aging population in our country and the continuous decline of the working-age population,the employment of middle-aged and elderly women is receiving increasing attention.At the same time,with the continuous advancement of the comprehensive two-child policy,the burden of family child care will also increase accordingly,and the main bearer of family child care responsibilities is middle-aged and elderly women who are grandmothers.Therefore,studying the impact of intergenerational care on the labor supply of middle-aged and elderly women not only improves the study of labor economics on the factors that affect women’s labor supply,but also provides a theoretical basis for how to make policies to tap the labor supply potential of middle-aged and elderly women,improve the pension retirement system.This article mainly studies the following three issues:(1)the impact of intergenerational care on the labor supply of middle-aged and elderly women;(2)the heterogeneity of the impact of intergenerational care on the labor supply of middle-aged and elderly women in different types of residence;(3)the heterogeneity of the impact of intergenerational care on the labor supply of middle-aged and elderly women in different cohorts.Based on the time allocation theory,life course theory and the review of related literature,the following three research hypotheses are proposed:(1)Intergenerational care has a negative impact on the labor supply of middle-aged and elderly women;(2)the impact of intergenerational care on the labor supply of middle-aged and elderly women in rural areas is greater than that of urban areas;(3)Intergenerational care has the least impact on labor supply for women born before 1950,and intergenerational care has the greatest effect on labor supply for women born after 1960.Based on the CHARLS data of 2011,2013 and 2015,the above hypotheses are empirically tested.Based on Ols model,Probit model,instrumental variable method and Heckman sample selection model,the research finds that intergenerational care has a significant negative impact on the labor participation and working time of middle-aged and elderly women.In terms of labor participation,the provision of intergenerational care will reduce the labor participation rate of middle-aged and elderly women by 3%.For every one hundred hours of intergenerational care,the probability of labor participation of middle-aged and elderly women decreases by0.1%.In terms of working hours,the provision of intergenerational care will reduce the annual working hours of middle-aged and elderly women by 171.9hours.and the working time of middle-aged and elderly women will be reduced by3.4 hours for every 100 hours of increased caring time.On this basis,this article finds that the effects of intergenerational care on labor supply of middle-aged and elderly women are different between urban and rural areas and from cohort to cohort.In the regression by type of residence,it is found that the impact of intergenerational care on the labor participation of urban middle-aged and elderly women is greater than that of rural middle-aged and elderly women,however,the effect of intergenerational care on the working time of urban middle-aged and elderly women is basically the same as that of rural middle-aged and elderly women.In the regression of cohorts,it is found that intergenerational care has the greatest impact on the labor supply of middle-aged and elderly women born after1960,and has the least impact on the labor supply of middle-aged and elderly women born before 1950.Considering the possible endogenous problems of intergenerational care,This paper selects community level variables as instrumental variables to empirically test the endogeneity of intergenerational care and find that there is no endogenous problems.At the same time,the Heckman sample selection model is used to study the possible sample selection problems in working time,and it is found that there is no sample selection problem.Based on the conclusions of this study,this paper believes that the government should build a public care service system as soon as possible,strengthen the training of formal caregivers,and formulate policies for flexible employment of informal caregivers.In order to meet the needs of family child care and promote the employment of middle-aged and elderly women,promote the coordinated development of economy and society.The innovation of this article is to study the heterogeneity of the impact of intergenerational care on the labor supply of different types of residence and different cohorts of middle-aged and elderly women.