儿子养老还是女儿养老?基于家庭内部的比较分析

Sons or Daughters?Who Are Caring for Aging Parents:A Gender Comparative Study of Chinese Family

本文使用2010年中国家庭追踪调查数据,通过家庭内部比较,从经济支持和生活照料两个方面对儿子和女儿的赡养行为进行系统的比较研究。结果发现,在当代中国家庭中,儿子在赡养父母时的总效应依然显著大于女儿,这主要是因为他们更可能与父母同住。一旦控制子女与父母的居住方式,儿子的直接效应就仅在经济支持方面大于女儿。在生活照料方面,女儿的直接效应已经显著超过儿子。从城乡对比来看,这种"儿子出钱、女儿出力"的性别分工模式主要出现在农村。在城市,女儿在经济支持和生活照料两个方面的直接效应都超过儿子。所以,中国传统的以儿子为核心的赡养方式虽然没有彻底瓦解,但已发生明显变化,快速的人口转变和女性社会经济地位的提高是导致这些变化的重要原因。

The traditional Chinese family has long been characterized as patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal, placing women at a severe social disadvantage in relation to men. Under such a system, sons were permanent members of the natal family and were expected to live with parents after marriage and contribute to their economic well-being. In contrast, daughters were temporary members of the natal family. Upon marriage, a woman was expected to serve her husband＇s extended family and bore no filial obligation to her own parents. Nevertheless, in recent years some studies have found that the tradition of sons as the sole provider for aging parents has undergone significant changes in contemporary China. To further investigate this issue, our study examines two aspects of intergenerational support., financial support and aging care, and highlights the gender difference between sons and daughters in this regard. Taking into consideration of the commonly practiced patrilocal living arrangement in China, we separate the gender difference between sons and daughters in care behaviors from the gender difference caused by living arrangement. The gender comparison data in this study is drawn from within the same family. China Family Panel Study （2010） provides the database for our analysis. Our finding indicates that sons still play a significantly greater role than daughters in providing support for their aging parents, however, this is only largely due to the fact that sons are most likely to live with or live in close proximity to their parents. If the variable of living arrangement is included, sons play a leading role in providing financial support but lag behind daughters in providing aging care. Discrepancy also exists between rural and urban families. While in rural China, it is still true that ＂sons give money and daughters provide care＂; in cities, daughters have already outperformed sons in both aspects of financial support and aging care. Therefore, even though the Chinese tradition of relying on sons as the core provider of intergenerational support is still alive, significant changes have already occurred. Our study suggests that the rapid demographic transition and the improvement of socio-economic status of women are the two primary contributors to such changes.