遗产动机对中国老年家庭储蓄率的影响

The Impact of Heritage Motivation on the Savings Rate of Chinese Senior Families

中国人口老龄化问题日益凸显,老年家庭储蓄率居高不下,标准生命周期假说理论已无法解释。基于中国家庭金融调查数据,从遗产动机视角分析老年家庭高储蓄率现象。研究结果表明,中国老年家庭遗产动机显著提升家庭储蓄率,遗产动机使得老年家庭储蓄率水平显著提高5%—10%左右。进一步研究发现,相比较于城市家庭,遗产动机对农村家庭储蓄影响显著;相对于高等财富家庭而言,遗产动机显著促进中低财富家庭储蓄率水平,说明“未富先老”使得老年家庭有更强的遗产动机进行储蓄;对于家庭不同生活状况的子女,遗产动机显著提升子女体制外工作和子女教育水平低的老年家庭储蓄率,表明中国老年家庭利他主义的遗产动机较强。本文为理解中国老年家庭的高储蓄提供了新的视角,可以为政府相关部门制定政策提供参考。

The problem of aging population in China has become increasingly prominent,and the saving rate of elderly families remains high,which cannot be explained by the standard life cycle hypothesis.Based on the survey data of family finance in China,this paper analyzes the phenomenon of high saving rate of elderly families from the perspective of heritage motivation.The results show that the heritage motivation of Chinese elderly families significantly increases the household saving rate,and the heritage motivation significantly increases the level of elderly household saving rate by about 5%—10%.Further study found that compared with urban families,heritage motivation has a significant impact on rural household savings.Compared with high wealth families,heritage motivation significantly promotes the level of savings rate of low and middle wealth families,which suggests“getting old before getting rich”makes the elderly families have stronger heritage motivation to save.For the children with different living conditions,heritage motivation significantly improves the saving rate of the elderly families whose children work outside the system and whose children’s education level is low,which indicates that the elderly families in China have stronger heritage motivation of altruism.This paper provides a new perspective to understand the high savings of Chinese elderly families and can provide a reference for relevant government departments to formulate policies.