A Blessing or a Substitute? Evaluating the Impact of Public Pensions on Family Support in Rural China
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/an46sx29Keywords:
Family Elderly Support, New Rural Pension Scheme, Intergenerational Transfers.Abstract
Facing severe rural aging and declining family eldercare, China introduced the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) in 2009. This paper uses fuzzy RDD and 2SLS with CHARLS 2011–2020 data to examine how public pensions affect intergenerational financial transfers. We find a strong crowding-out effect: pension income reduces children’s monetary support by around 63.6%. Grandchild care cannot offset this substitution effect. The crowding-out impact rises with the number of adult children and is only significant for elderly men. Bandwidth and placebo tests confirm the results. Formal pensions substitute informal family support, which provides targeted policy implications for rural old-age security.
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