The influence of children’s gender on parents’ willingness for institutional elderly care

Abstract

 China is entering an era with increasingly aging population. Elderly care constitutes a huge challenge for the society and the government. In this study, I examine the effect of childrens’ gender on the parents’ willingness to choose an institution for the elderly care in China. I use the gender of the first-born child as a proxy for children gender to alleviate the potential non-randomness of children gender (e.g., the gender composition of children may be artificially manipulated). Using large-sample nationwide household survey data and Logit model for empirical analysis, I find that if the first-born child is a son, parents are less willing to choose an institution for elderly care. In addition, the impact is very heterogeneous. Specifically, in terms of differences in individual characteristics, the impact mainly comes from middle-aged and elderly groups, groups without public institutional elderly care, and low-educated groups; in terms of differences in family characteristics, the impact mainly comes from families with only one child and families in rural areas; in terms of differences in regional characteristics, the impact mainly comes from the Northeast, developing areas, and areas with fewer scandals in elderly care institutions. Moreover, the evidence from mechanism analysis shows that the gender of children affects parents’ willingness to choose institutions for elderly care through the traditional concepts (e.g., “raising sons for elderly care” and “filial piety”) and the gender differences in economic abilities. Further analysis shows that if the first-born child is a son, it will increase the willingness of parents to choose elderly care at home. This study sheds important light on the reasons for the slow development of China’s institutional pension industry from the perspective of children’s gender differences. The conclusions of this paper also help to provide suggestions for the government to formulate policies on elderly care and provide guidance for elderly care institutions.