Brothers, sisters, and support to older parents: separate spheres across and within support types?

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

3-2025

Abstract

Adult children, especially sons, are often considered a linchpin of support to older parents in many patriarchal societies. We develop a model of transfers from adult children to older parents as existing in separate spheres depending on the child’s gender and type of transfer. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we find strong evidence of such differentiation. Coresidential support comes almost exclusively from sons as do large transfers, while daughters are more likely to make smaller transfers. Interestingly, crowding-out of financial transfers by siblings occurs primarily within gender: sons give less when they have more brothers but not when they have more sisters, and daughters give less when they have more sisters but not when they have more brothers. This pattern is present for both in-kind and cash transfers, suggesting that support from adult children may not be substitutable between genders, even for relatively fungible currencies.

Keywords

intergenerational transfers, adult children, gender differences, elder support, family economics, China, coresidence, financial transfers, sibling crowding-out, aging parents

Discipline

Labor Economics

Publication

Journal of Population Economics

Volume

38

Issue

1

ISSN

0933-1433

Identifier

10.1007/s00148-025-01059-6

Publisher

Springer

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-025-01059-6

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