Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between intergenerational co-residence and the subjective well-being (SWB) of elders based on the individual-level panel data collected from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey from 2002 to 2014. We use the endogenous treatment effect model to minimize selection bias and estimate the causal impacts of intergenerational co-residence on parental SWB. In addition, we employ the individual fixed-effect model for robustness checks. Results corroborate that elders who live with their adult–children are happier than those who do not undergo such a living arrangement. We also investigate heterogeneous effects across geographical regions and demographic groups. Older people in rural areas who co-reside with their adult–children gain a more substantial co-residence effect compared with those in urban areas. Moreover, results are robust according to different specifications. Our findings provide useful implications for policymakers in promoting the SWB of elders.
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Notes
For instance, the “one-child policy” was introduced in 1979 and eliminated by the end of 2015.
E.g., China, Europe, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand, and Spain.
E.g., Europe and Indonesia.
Given the availability and validity of data in questionnaires, the missing and invalid observations are excluded in the sample.
The dialect diversity index in city \(i\) is measure as follows: \(Dialect\;Diversity_{i} = 1 - \mathop \sum \limits_{k = 1}^{N} W_{ki}^{2}\); where \(N\) denotes the number of dialects used in this city; \(W_{ki}\) indicates the proportion of people using dialect \(k\) in city \(i\). The values of the dialect diversity index are between 0 and 1. This index can be interpreted as the possibility of speaking different dialects for two randomly selected persons in a particular city. The higher the value, the more diversity in dialects. The data source is from Xu et al. (2015).
The procedure is implemented in Stata command “treatoprobitsim” as proposed by Gregory (2015).
Twoway-clustering is allowed in Stata command “reghdfe”. Thus, we indicate the interactions of city and year such that we can estimate consistent standard errors even when the observations are correlated within groups.
The instrument can only identify those individuals living in areas with relatively prevalent co-residence culture and decide to live with their adult–children. Thus, IV estimation only identifies the effects of those who can be switched from not co-residence into co-residence, which is the local average treatment effect (LATE) rather than average treatment effect (ATE). Actually, the switchers are more likely to benefit from co-residence with adult children. The causal impact comes from a selected part of the population.
Underidentification test null hypothesis: the excluded instrument is uncorrelated with the endogenous variable. The Anderson canon. corr. LM statistic is 34.290; P value = 0.0000. The result shows that the null hypothesis is rejected at 1% level, which means the equation is identified.
Weak identification test null hypothesis: the instruments are weak despite their correlation with the endogenous variable. The Cragg-Donald Wald F statistic is 17.158; the null hypothesis can be rejected according to the rules of thumb.
Overidentification test of all instruments null hypothesis: the instruments are valid. The Sargan statistic is 2.558; P value = 0.1097. The null hypothesis cannot be rejected.
In urban areas, rural immigrants may treat co-residence with older parents as an extra financial burden due to the high living costs and housing shortage. Conversely, higher housing prices may encourage urban parents to live with their adult child to reduce costs.
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Funding
Funding was provided by the Ministry of education of Humanities and Social Science (Grant No. 16YJC790149), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71603101), Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities of the Central South University (CN) (Grant No. Jinan University, No. 19JNQM19).
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Appendix
Appendix
See Tables 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.
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Yuan, Zq., Zheng, X. & Hui, E.C.M. Happiness Under One Roof? The Intergenerational Co-residence and Subjective Well-Being of Elders in China. J Happiness Stud 22, 727–765 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00249-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00249-1