Understanding the Effect of Adult Children’s Education on Older Parents’ Subjective Well-being: Evidence from China

What the paper says

While the effects of children’s education on parents’ longevity, cognition, and physical health have been explored in the literature, little is known about whether and how children’s education influences parents’ subjective well-being. Utilizing data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this paper explores the effect of adult children’s education on older parents’ life satisfaction with a special focus on the mechanisms and gender heterogeneity of this effect. Exploiting the variations in the enforcement of the Compulsory Education Law in China for our instrumental variable estimation, we show that an increase in adult children’s education significantly improves their older parents’ life satisfaction. Compared to daughters, sons’ education has a stronger impact on their parents’ life satisfaction. Further evidence suggests that fewer children’s problems, increased intergenerational supports, closer parent-child relationships, and better perceptions about the future are critical underlying pathways. By contrast, no significant counterpart impact is found for older parents’ psychological well-being. Our findings provide new insights into the intergenerational determinants of parental subjective well-being and may help policy makers understand the full benefits of education expansion policies.