Health Inequality in the Older Population of China: The Contribution of Adult Children’s Socioeconomic Status

• In Event: 3111 - Comparative Perspectives on Inequality in Later Life

Abstract

Adult children play a central role in the support of their aging parents in China, and the adult children’s achievements can potentially influence their older parent’s physical health. This paper uses the data of the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS 2014) to examine the importance of adult children’s achievement on their older parent’s functional health in China. We include both the existence of functional limitation and the magnitude of functional limitation in order to capture the differences in the mechanisms driving the onset of disability and the progression of disability. The results show the adult children’s socioeconomic status has independent effects on their older parent’s function health, net of the older parent’s own socioeconomic status. First, adult children’s educational achievement plays important role in their parent’s prevention of disability, but the educational attainment of adult children does not significantly contribute to the reduction of the severity of their parent’s functional limitation. Second, parents with children working in non-agricultural sectors have better functional health, compared to the parents whose children work in agricultural sectors. Specifically, parents with children working in non-agricultural sectors have both the lower probability of disability and lower level of functional limitation. Third, the economic condition of adult children is positively associated with the parent’s functional health—parents whose children have higher economic status have a lower probability of disability and a lower level of functional limitation. These findings suggest that parents who invest more in their children’s education gain more health benefits in their later lives.

Authors

• Wencheng Zhang, Syracuse University

• Merril Silverstein, Syracuse University