Volume 43 - Article 8 | Pages 183–216  

Life course and cohort effects on Chinese parents' investments in their children

By Jingye Shi, Bing Xu, Yi Wei

This article is part of the Special Collection 28 "Life-Course Decisions of Families in China"

Abstract

Background: How parents’ age at the birth of their children (age at parity) affects their investments in the children has not been explored previously.

Objective: We examine the effect of parents’ age at parity on the investments in their children by disentangling the overall effect into life-course effect and cohort effect.

Methods: Using the 2017 wave of the Chinese Household Finance Survey, we conduct a cross-sectional regression analysis to separately estimate the life-course effect and the cohort effect.

Results: We find a positive relationship between parents’ age at parity and investments in their children and a negative relationship between parents’ current age and investments. We also find a negative relationship between investments and parents' age interacted with their age at parity.

Conclusions: Parents who gave birth at an older age and those from a younger cohort on average invest more in their children, both financially and in time. Older parents spending more on their children suggests that financial constraints may be another channel, in addition to a biological one, through which having a child at a later age limits total fertility.

Contribution: Delay in age at parity and increase in parental investment in children are two prominent social phenomena in many parts of the world. The positive link we find between them suggests that these phenomena, which are often cited as important contributors to the decline in the total fertility rate in many nations, may be reinforcing each other.

Author's Affiliation

• Jingye Shi - Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, China EMAIL
• Bing Xu - Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, China EMAIL
• Yi Wei - Peking University, China EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Introduction to the special collection on life course decisions of families in China
Volume 43 - Article 5

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Educational trends in cohort fertility by birth order: A comparison of England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland
Volume 51 - Article 36    | Keywords: birth order, cohort analysis, cross-national study, England, family size, fertility, Northern Ireland, parity, Scotland, Wales

A Bayesian model for age at death with cohort effects
Volume 51 - Article 33    | Keywords: age at death, Bayesian approach, cohort effects, Italy, mortality

Higher incomes are increasingly associated with higher fertility: Evidence from the Netherlands, 2008–2022
Volume 51 - Article 26    | Keywords: fertility, income, inequalities, Netherlands, parenthood

The short- and long-term determinants of fertility in Uruguay
Volume 51 - Article 10    | Keywords: fertility, panel data, stages of female reproductive life, time series, Uruguay

The intergenerational transmission of migration capital: The role of family migration history and lived migration experiences
Volume 50 - Article 29    | Keywords: childhood, emigration, Europe, immigration, life course