家庭照料强度与中年劳动人口非农就业的关系研究

Informal Caregiving Intensity and Off-farm Employment of the Older Working-aged Women and Men in China

本文使用2011-2012年中国健康与养老追踪调查数据(CHARLS),实证检验了家庭照料强度与非农就业的关系,采用工具变量方法剔除内生性后发现高强度照料是非农就业率显著下降的主要因素,使得女性和男性非农就业率分别显著下降53.7%和4.8%,且随着照料强度增加这一负面影响分别提高到77.4%和5.8%,研究结果稳健。进一步研究发现照料强度在孙子女照料和父母照料方面存在异质性。对于孙子女照料,除了高强度照料,低强度照料也会给非农就业带来显著阻碍作用;对于父母照料,高强度照料依然与劳动参与负相关,但低强度照料却与劳动参与正相关且这一结果仅集中在女性身上。本文研究显示高强度家庭照料有较大的机会成本,照料强度因素在考察家庭照料与劳动参与之间的关系时具有重要意义。本文建议在实施“渐进式延迟法定退休年龄政策”的同时,同步建设社会照料服务体系,特别是托幼服务体系;高强度照料者特别是女性应该是相关社会照料服务体系的首要关注对象,使承担家庭照料的劳动者更好地兼顾照料责任和工作。

Using China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study 2011-2012 baseline survey,we identify the relationship between caregiving intensity and off-farm labor force participation(LFP).Ruling out the endogeneity of caregiving intensity with IV model,we find providing high intensity of unpaid caregiving significantly reduced the probability of employment by 53.7 percentage for women and 4.8 percentage for men,respectively.And there was an incremental reduction in LFP of higher intensity of caregiving,a reduction of 77.4%and 5.8%percentage points in LFP for women and men.The results are robust.And there was a heterogeneity of caregiving intensity for grandchild care and parental care.For grandchild care,women and men higher intensity caregivers were both more likely to be labor force non-participant;however,for parental care,high intensity caregiving was negatively associated with LFP,while low intensity caregiving was positively related to LFP.Our results highlight the importance of measuring caregiving intensity,suggesting that there is a substantial opportunity cost of“free”unpaid caregiving in terms of LFP should not be understated.Policies context including extending retiring age should be tailored according to caregiving intensity in order to enhance their ability to balance unpaid home care and labor activities high intensity unpaid caregiving.