Old-age pensions and family support in China: Bridging the two levels of intergenerational relationships

This thesis is motivated by the recent demographic and policy changes in China. It explores the two levels of intergenerational support relationships in China, that is, public pension provisions at the macro level and the intergenerational family support at the micro level. In 2009 and 2011, the Chinese government initiated two new pension schemes to expand the public pension coverage to the long-excluded older residents. Considering the well-recognised role of Chinese family in providing for its older members, there is surprisingly little research on how far such support networks and relationships have been changed by the new public pension arrangements.

Against this background, the present mixed-method study seeks to understand how older Chinese obtain old-age support and financial security via public pensions and/or family support. Based on unobserved effects models and Heckman two-step selection regression analyses of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, the quantitative part of this study examines the impact of public pensions on intergenerational support transfers. The qualitative part constitutes a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with older Chinese in the Baoji area, where the new pensions were first initiated, to explore the support arrangements and negotiations. Results show that the new pensions fail to change the already-in-place intergenerational support arrangements as effectively as the established pension schemes. On one hand, the continuous family support arrangements reflect the familial agency in the mobilisation and redistribution of resources to meet the needs of its members. On the other hand, both generations are exercising individual and familial agencies to adjust to, reinterpret, and reshape their intergenerational relationships.

The study brings together older people’s expectations and support behaviours, financial transfers and care support, as well as the solidarity and ambivalence experiences of both generations. It contributes to the analytical framework of considering family as a primary socio-economic actor by exploring and examining the mobilisation and transfers of different forms of resources in Chinese intergenerational families. The study also demonstrates the potential merits of mixed-method research design.