多子未必多福——生育决策、家庭养老与农村老年人生活质量

Does the Number of Children Matter to the Happiness of Their Parents?

人口老龄化的来临对中国农村家庭养老提出了新的挑战。本文研究了农村家庭不同生育决策对老年生活质量的影响效应,并对中国农村家庭养老机制提出了相应的理论解释。研究发现,重视子女教育能够有效提高农村父母老年生活质量,尤其是择优培育效果更为明显,而单纯子女数量的增长对老年人生活质量只有负面影响。和儿子相比,女儿受教育年限的提高更有利于农村老年人生活质量的改善。但是在不同年龄段,影响效应存在明显差异。在老年初期和老年中期,女儿受教育年限越长,父母的健康状况和经济状况也就越好,并且女儿给予老年人的照料也更多;但是在老年后期,儿子受教育年限对农村老年人生活质量的积极作用更为明显。

The aging population brings unprecedented challenges to the care provision for the elderly in rural China.This paper studies how fertility decisions affect the parents' quality of life when they enter into the later stage of life,with a specific focus on the gender differences of the children.This study finds out that the educational level of children has a positive effect on improving their elderly parents' quality of life.Furthermore,a preferential treatment of the more talented children is more effective than simply increasing the number of children,which in fact has negative influence on the life quality of the parents.Overall,the improvement of the daughter's education level is more effective in improving the parents' quality of life.However,the scales of the effect are different at different stages.In the early and middle stage of the old age,the health and economic condition of the elderly parents improve as the length of the daughter's education increases.The daughter tends to provide more care to the parents than the son.Yet,in the later stage,the educational level of the son plays a more significant role in the life quality of the rural elderly.