A Research on the Security Role of New Rural Pension Scheme：Theoretical Mechanisms and Empirical Evidence

Jin Weidong; Wang Pengfan; He Li

doi:doi:10.16538/j.cnki.jfe.2018.11.009

Summary

In recent years, low fertility rate, population aging, population mobility and urbanization have constituted a huge thrust to the change of intergenerational relationships in rural households, and inhibited the function of family support for the rural elderly. Therefore, the government proposed New Rural Pension Scheme （NRPS） in 2009, which was placed high hopes on solving the problem of rural elderly care. With the gradual deepening of NRPS, it has become the focus of the academic circle and the government that whether NRPS has changed the family support mode decided by the intergenerational relationships of rural families and finally improved the life quality of the rural elderly.　　At present, based on the understanding and expectation of social support for the elderly, many scholars have emphatically examined the impact of NRPS on intergenerational economic support, thus investigating the substitution effect of NRPS on rural family support for the rural elderly. However, on the one hand, family support is the result of long-term natural evolution, restricted by various factors such as morality, culture and law, which is difficult to be replaced in the short term. On the other hand, family support covers the two-way intergenerational flow of multiple resources. It easily leads to misjudgment about the effectiveness of NRPS by analyzing intergenerational economic transfer alone. In view of the above, regarding NRPS as a beneficial supplement to rural family support, this study analyzes the impact of NRPS on the intergenerational relationships and then on the life quality and the rural family support model from the perspective of interaction between parents and children. It is certainly conducive to a comprehensive understanding of the actual effects of NRPS.　　The results show that: First, NRPS enhances the income of the rural elderly and improves their life quality by increasing public subsidies and child economic support. Second, according to the intergenerational balance principle of intergenerational support and the economic resource preference of the rural elderly, NRPS will reduce time support of children while improving the income of the rural elderly, thus changing the rural family support mode. Third, the security role of NRPS has obvious time delay and group differences in the implementation effect, that is, the elderly who are low-income, aged or living alone are more likely to benefit from it. This paper provides empirical evidence by using the fixed effects model （FE）, difference-in-differences model （DID） and difference-in-differences with propensity score matching （DDPSM）, then verifies the robustness by changing the empirical strategy and adjusting the sample.　　Therefore, in order to solve the problem of rural elderly care, it is necessary to increase public investment in pensions to improve the income of the rural elderly, so that their quality of life will be enhanced more efficiently. Besides, " bundled” requirement must be adjusted to reduce economic transfer from children and let the children play a greater role in daily care and spiritual comfort. NRPS should become a supplement rather than a replacement of rural family support. Moreover, it is important to expand the proportion of low-income, unhealthy and living alone elderly people to optimize the allocation structure of old-age resources and strengthen the security function of NRPS.