| An aging population and rapidly declining fertility rate are serious concerns faced by Chinese society.According to the Seventh National Census Bulletin,by the end of 2020,China’s population aged 60 and above has reached over 264 million,and the population aged 65 and over has reached close to 191 million.These numbers account for 18.7% and 13.5% of the total population,respectively,which are increase of 5.44% and 4.63% compared with the same statistics from the sixth Census in 2010.It means the degree of population aging will further deepen.The "Statistical Communiqué of the People’s Republic of China on National Economic and Social Development in 2021" shows that in 2021,China’s annual birth population has been 10.62 million,and the population birth rate has been 0.752%,which has been less than 1% for two consecutive years since 2020,and the risk of low fertility will continue to increase.In order to cope with the challenges brought about by the aging of the child population,the formulation and implementation of the delayed retirement policy and the "three-child" policy have also made scholars further study the reproductive behavior of Chinese families,and intergenerational cooperative behaviors such as intergenerational care of grandparents have begun to attract attention.In this context,this study hopes to analyze how grandparents affects reproductive behavior in Chinese families,focusing on the influence mechanism of intergenerational cooperation behavior between family grandparents and parents on family fertility behavior,and further analyzing the possible impact of grandparents’ retirement status on family fertility behavior.Based on the theory of maximizing the utility of family fertility decisions in population economics,this study uses the novel perspective of intergenerational support to add intergenerational cooperation related factors to the existing research framework,constructed a family fertility decision-making model,and through theoretical analysis of the model solution,the effects of grandparents’ participation on family fertility behavior are divided into cost effects,wealth effects,and child-bearing effects,put forward hypotheses on the main mechanisms of influence on family fertility decision-making by grandparents.In order to test the relevant hypotheses,the data of the China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)in 2016 and 2018 are selected to empirically test the relevant hypotheses,filling the gaps in the coverage and examination factors of the existing studies.In this paper,the number of children under the age of three in the family is first interpreted as the explanatory variable,and whether the family has living grandparents as the main explanatory variables,and the results show that there is a significant positive correlation between the two variables,and the participation of grandparents will promote family fertility behavior as a whole.Then,in the basic model,the correlation variables of intergenerational cooperation such as the logarithm of the monthly economic assistance of the family to the grandparents,the frequency of care and housework between the grandparents,and the logarithmic amount of monthly economic support provided by the grandparents were added,and the endogenous problems were dealt with by the twostage least squares method(2SLS),so as to carry out the mechanism analysis,and the results showed that the cost of support of the grandparents would inhibit the family fertility behavior.Generational care and economic support from ancestors have a positive impact on family fertility behavior.In order to further analyze the differences in the participation of ancestors in influencing family fertility behavior,this paper also analyzes the gender heterogeneity of grandparents and the heterogeneity of husbands’ household registration,and the results show that the intergenerational support behavior of female grandparents,especially the intergenerational care support,has a more significant impact on the reproductive behavior of offspring families,the impact of urban family fertility behavior on the cost of grandparental support is much lower than that of rural families,and the impact of economic assistance from grandparents on the reproductive behavior of urban families is higher than that of rural families.Finally,after controlling the family sample to be covered by the retirement policy,the data regression results of the two years in 2016 and 2018 show that the grandparents’ retirement will inhibit the family fertility behavior by increasing the cost of grandparents’ pension borne by the offspring family and reducing the intergenerational economic support that the grandparents can provide,but will promote the family fertility behavior by increasing the care time of the grandparents.The positive effect of grandparents’ participation on family fertility behavior has also passed the robustness test of variable substitution and PSM.This study further enriches the literature in the field of intergenerational support.Combined with the main conclusions of this paper,in order to cope with the challenges of a low-fertility aging society,it is proposed to adopt differentiated support work for the elderly according to the different social security conditions enjoyed,alleviate the cost of family support,and guide the intergenerational care behavior to play a positive effect;consider the important impact of female grandparents on family fertility behavior,appropriately shorten the working hours of delayed retirees,especially women’s working hours;and create an external environment conducive to intergenerational support and fertility behavior.As far as possible,the implementation of retirement policies and fertility policies has a positive impact on the balanced development of China’s population. |
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