Old Age Care Preferences Among Chinese Middle-Aged Single-Child Parents and the Related Policy Implications

ABSTRACT

We contrast rural and urban single-child parents’ old age care preferences and factors determining their preferences. The results show that single-child parents are more likely to report specific old age preferences than parents with multiple children; urban single-child parents are also more likely to have specific old age care preferences than their rural counterparts. Pension/social insurance is most preferred by urban single-child parents; whereas the preferences of rural single-child parents are more diverse. The most significant rural and urban differences lie in the effects of social and medical insurance on the respondents’ selection of care sources. Policy implications are discussed in the end.

KEYWORDS:

• Single-child parent
• old age care preference
• China
• urban
• rural

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Program for Young Innovative Research Team in China University of Political Science and Law. It is also funded by a Social Science Research Grant provided by Ministry of Education in China (15YJC840047)