Gender Patterns of Eldercare in China

ABSTRACT

Using the baseline wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), collected from 2011 to 2012, this study finds that among those age 60 and above, women are 7.6 percent more likely than men to have care needs and 29.3 percent more likely than men to have unmet needs; and that most of the gender gap in unmet needs is explained by the existence and health status of a spouse. Further analysis reveals a sharp gender division in patterns of family care in China. While men are more likely to receive care from their wives, women are primarily cared for by their children. Marital status and spouse health also affect provision of care, with infirm women who have healthy husbands less likely to receive care than infirm men with healthy wives. The findings have important implications for designing gender-sensitive policies in eldercare.

• KEYWORDS

• Eldercare
• instrumental care
• intergenerational support
• gender roles
• China
• CHARLS

JEL Codes:

• J14
• J16
• J12

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by the International Development Research Center of Canada [107579], the Natural Science Foundation of China [71450001; 71273237; 7130002; 71603013], the Knowledge for Change Program at the World Bank [RF-P131518-RESE-TF015161], National Institute on Ageing [R01AG037031, R03AG049144], and China Medical Board [16-249]. We thank Prof. Xiao-yuan Dong and the three anonymous referees for helpful comments.

Notes

1 This law was adopted at the third session of the Fifth National People's Congress on September 10, 1980 and amended in accordance with the “Decision on Amending the Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China,” which was made at the 21st meeting of the Standing Committee on the Ninth National People's Congress, April 28, 2001. The Marriage Law (2001) states that parents are under obligation for the upbringing and educating of their children, and children are also under obligation to support their parents. If a child fails to perform his or her obligations, parents who are unable to work or who are living a difficult life shall be entitled to ask their child to pay aliments (that is, funds necessary to support basic housing and nourishment).

2 The guiding principles for the future of elder care in China are reflected in the government policy Speeding up the Development of the Service Industry for the Elderly (State Council 2013), which emphasizes the role of the market in service provision and the regulatory role of the state.

3 More detailed information on the survey is available in the 2011–12 national baseline user's guide (Zhao et al. 2013).

4 Women also have worse health status in most other dimensions of health measurements (Lei et al. 2014).

5  Rural hukou, or agricultural registration status, is an identity coined in the 1950s for the purpose of differentiating between grain producers and consumers. Those who have rural hukou were deemed farmers and not eligible for purchasing grains. Hukou status is the defining characteristic of the dual economy in China due to many restrictions placed on rural hukou holders in terms of employment and social benefits. Rural residence, on the other hand, is a geographic identity defined by the National Bureau of Statistics according to population density. A densely population area may be defined as an urban area even though most of the residents hold rural hukou. The much lower rate of rural residence in comparison to rural hukou is also a reflection of rural-to-urban migration in which rural hukou holders move to urban areas but cannot change the registration status.

6  For an analysis of gender differences in pension, see Zhao and Zhao (2018).

7 Using this information, we divide the health status of the respondent's spouse into three categories: those with no spouse, those whose spouse requires care, and those whose spouse requires no care.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Xinxin Chen

Xinxin Chen is Research Scientist at the Institute of Social Science Survey, Peking University. Her research interests include gender, population aging, and eldercare provision; rural-to-urban migration and its impacts on rural households; and the economics of poverty, with an emphasis on rural education.

John Giles

John Giles is Lead Economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank. His current research interests include population aging and retirement decisions in developing countries, the movement of labor from agricultural to nonagricultural employment, internal migration and its impacts on households and communities, poverty traps, household risk-coping and risk-management behavior, long-term effects of shocks to employment, school-to-work transitions, and women's labor supply decisions in developing countries.

Yafeng Wang

Yafeng Wang is Research Associate at the Institute of Social Science Survey, Peking University. His research interests include labor economics, demography, and applied econometrics. He is currently Director of the Data Department of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), which is among the world family of aging surveys that have similar study designs.

Yaohui Zhao

Yaohui Zhao is Yangtze River Scholar Professor of Economics at Peking University. She is principal investigator of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), a nationally representative sample of Chinese residents age 45 and older. Her research interests include labor and demographic economics, social security systems pertaining to the elderly, and health economics.