我国家庭中子女照料老人的机会成本——基于家庭动态调查数据的分析

Opportunity Cost Faced by Elder Informal Carers in China:Analysis on the Basis of Family Dynamic Data

我国经济发展水平的限制和少子老龄化的人口结构凸显了家庭在老年照料中的重要性和面临的危机。本文基于CLHLS数据库中的家庭动态调查数据,利用Heckman两阶段模型和Oaxaca分解方法,从劳动参与和工资水平两个方面验证照料老人给子女带来的机会成本。结果表明,老年照料会降低子女的劳动力市场参与率,并使其承受逐渐扩大的隐性"工资惩罚",其中女性照料者面临更大的工资差距,但男性照料者的工资差距中"工资惩罚"所占比例更大。总体看,照料老人的子女要付出明显的机会成本。这些研究结论对我国老龄政策的制定、老年社会保障服务体系的发展以及劳动力市场的完善都具有借鉴意义。

The economic development level restriction and low birth rate and aging population structure highlight the importance and crisis of our traditional elderly informal care. Using Family Dynamics Investigation Data in ＂Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey＂, this paper examines children＇s opportunity Cost of elderly informal care from the aspects of labor market involvement and wage level. Our results show that, elderly care will reduce children＇ s labor market participation rate. After considering the influence of sample selection, children providing informal care have to bear a wage gap caused by factors that cannot be explained, which means that there exists an implicit ＂wage penalty＂. This discrimination expands over time and leads to enlarging wage gap. Female caregivers are confronted with a larger wage gap, but male caregivers bear a more serious discrimination. These conclusions have strong reference significance to our aging policy formulation, elder social security service system development, and labor market perfection.