Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

submittedVersion

Publication Date

3-2017

Abstract

Son biased investments are common in many Asian countries where sons are customarily responsible for providing old age support to parents. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, I find that parents invested nearly twice more in sons than in daughters in terms of college education spending and marriage gifts value. Conversely, parents received relatively higher marginal returns to investment from daughters than from sons in terms of living proximity, monetary and in-kind transfers, and help with instrumental activities of daily living. Family fixed effects models as well as an instrumental variable strategy are employed to control for the potential endogeneity of parental investments in children. The results indicate that daughters may be reciprocating parental monetary investments in their education and marriage by increasing old age support. The findings suggest that daughters may be a viable source of support to parents and that encouraging parental investments in them may lead to an increase in family provided old age support.

Keywords

son bias, parental investment, old age support

Discipline

Asian Studies | Family, Life Course, and Society

Research Areas

Applied Microeconomics

Publication

Review of Economics of the Household

First Page

1

Last Page

40

ISSN

1569-5239

Publisher

ADBI

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-018-9428-y

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