IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/chieco/v51y2018icp294-308.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Grandparents' health and family fertility choice: Evidence from Taiwan

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Yiyun
  • Luh, Yir-Hueih

Abstract

The incompatibility of female time allocation between labor supply and child care has been one of the explanations of low fertility rate experienced by many countries. Non-parental care, especially that from grandparents or formal care, helps alleviate the constraint females facing and thus permits the families to have more children. Extending from the theoretical framework in Ermisch (1989), this study incorporates grandparents' health status to provide a theoretical justification for its effect on family size. Based on the data taken from the Panel Study of Chinese Family Dynamics (PSFD) from 2006 to 2011, it is found that grandparents in different age groups exhibit differential influence on family fertility decisions. Specifically, healthy grandparents in the 55–64 age group are found to have a persistent and positive impact on the family's probability of having more children as predicted by the theoretical model. Nonetheless, when grandparents' health effect is compounded by the age effect, more elderly healthy grandparents in the 75-and-up group will reduce the couple's desire for more children. This negative effect can be explained by the couple's consideration of lower childcare quality and larger age gaps leading to great differences in the childcare ideas. The number of healthy grandmothers are found to have an even greater influence on family fertility decisions, suggesting grandmothers still take the major responsibility of childcare in the family and thus constitute an absolutely crucial resource in the Chinese society.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Yiyun & Luh, Yir-Hueih, 2018. "Grandparents' health and family fertility choice: Evidence from Taiwan," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 294-308.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:51:y:2018:i:c:p:294-308
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2018.06.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X18300798
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.chieco.2018.06.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Evelyn Lehrer & Seiichi Kawasaki, 1985. "Child care arrangements and fertility: An analysis of two-earner households," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 22(4), pages 499-513, November.
    2. Wang, Ying & Marcotte, Dave E., 2007. "Golden Years? The Labor Market Effects of Caring for Grandchildren," IZA Discussion Papers 2629, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Mary Elizabeth Hughes & Linda J. Waite & Tracey A. LaPierre & Ye Luo, 2007. "All in the Family: The Impact of Caring for Grandchildren on Grandparents' Health," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 62(2), pages 108-119.
    4. Cigno, Alessandro & Ermisch, John, 1989. "A microeconomic analysis of the timing of births," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 737-760, April.
    5. Massimiliano Bratti & Tommaso Frattini & Francesco Scervini, 2018. "Grandparental availability for child care and maternal labor force participation: pension reform evidence from Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(4), pages 1239-1277, October.
    6. Daniela Del Boca, 2002. "The effect of child care and part time opportunities on participation and fertility decisions in Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(3), pages 549-573.
    7. Ermisch, John F, 1989. "Purchased Child Care, Optimal Family Size and Mother's Employment: Theory and Econometric Analysis," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 2(2), pages 79-102.
    8. Kevane, Michael & Levine, David I., 2000. "The Changing Status of Daughters in Indonesia," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt09m817c0, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    9. Tom Kornstad & Thor Thoresen, 2007. "A discrete choice model for labor supply and childcare," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(4), pages 781-803, October.
    10. Karsten Hank & Michaela R. Kreyenfeld, 2000. "Does the availability of childcare influence the employment of mothers? Findings from western Germany," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2000-003, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    11. Genius, Margarita & Pantzios, Christos J. & Tzouvelekas, Vangelis, 2006. "Information Acquisition and Adoption of Organic Farming Practices," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 31(1), pages 1-21, April.
    12. Haan, Peter & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2011. "Can child care policy encourage employment and fertility?: Evidence from a structural model," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 498-512, August.
    13. Hajivassiliou, Vassilis & McFadden, Daniel & Ruud, Paul, 1996. "Simulation of multivariate normal rectangle probabilities and their derivatives theoretical and computational results," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1-2), pages 85-134.
    14. Rivers, Douglas & Vuong, Quang H., 1988. "Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 347-366, November.
    15. Compton, Janice & Pollak, Robert A., 2014. "Family proximity, childcare, and women’s labor force attachment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 72-90.
    16. Daniela Del Boca & Daniela Vuri, 2007. "The mismatch between employment and child care in Italy: the impact of rationing," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(4), pages 805-832, October.
    17. Ronald Rindfuss & David Guilkey & S. Morgan & Øystein Kravdal & Karen Guzzo, 2007. "Child care availability and first-birth timing in Norway," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(2), pages 345-372, May.
    18. Bramley, D. & Hebert, P. & Tuzzio, L. & Chassin, M., 2005. "Disparities in indigenous health: A cross-country comparison between New Zealand and the United States," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 95(5), pages 844-850.
    19. Karen Mason & Karen Kuhlthau, 1992. "The perceived impact of child care costs on women’s labor supply and fertility," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 29(4), pages 523-543, November.
    20. Luciano Fanti & Luca Gori, 2014. "An OLG model of growth with longevity: when grandparents take care of grandchildren," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 13(1), pages 39-51, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gu, Hejun & Bian, Fengqin & Elahi, Ehsan, 2021. "Impact of availability of grandparents’ care on birth in working women: An empirical analysis based on data of Chinese dynamic labour force," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    2. Jiaping Zhang & Xiaomei Gong, 2023. "How does environmental quality perception influence people's fertility intention? Evidence from China," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 272-296, June.
    3. Leimer, Birgit & van Ewijk, Reyn, 2022. "Are grandchildren good for you? Well-being and health effects of becoming a grandparent," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    4. Wang, Ye & Zhao, Xindong, 2022. "Grandparental childcare, maternal labor force participation, and the birth of a second child: Further knowledge from empirical analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 762-770.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Karsten Hank & Michaela Kreyenfeld, 2002. "A Multilevel Analysis of Child Care and the Transition to Motherhood in Western Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 290, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. D. Vandelannoote & P. Vanleenhove & A. Decoster & J. Ghysels & G. Verbist, 2015. "Maternal employment: the impact of triple rationing in childcare," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 685-707, September.
    3. Trude Lappegård, 2008. "Family Policies and Fertility: Parents' Parental Leave Use, Childcare Availability, the Introduction of Childcare Cash Benefit and Continued Childbearing in Norway," Discussion Papers 564, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    4. Wolfgang Frimmel & Martin Halla & Bernhard Schmidpeter & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2022. "Grandmothers’ Labor Supply," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(5), pages 1645-1689.
    5. Junyi Zhang & Lili Xu & Akimasa Fujiwara, 2012. "Developing an integrated scobit-based activity participation and time allocation model to explore influence of childcare on women’s time use behaviour," Transportation, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 125-149, January.
    6. Jan Van Bavel & Joanna Rózanska-Putek, 2010. "Second birth rates across Europe: interactions between women’s level of education and child care enrolment," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 8(1), pages 107-138.
    7. Müller, Kai-Uwe & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2020. "Does subsidized care for toddlers increase maternal labor supply? Evidence from a large-scale expansion of early childcare," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    8. Müller, Kai-Uwe & Wrohlich, Katharina & Sengül, Denise, 2016. "Does subsidized care for toddlers increase maternal labor supply? Evidence from a large-scale expansion of early childcare," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145654, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Agnese Romiti, 2018. "The Effects of Immigration on Household Services, Labour Supply and Fertility," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 80(4), pages 843-869, August.
    10. Jonas Wood & Karel Neels, 2019. "Local Childcare Availability and Dual-Earner Fertility: Variation in Childcare Coverage and Birth Hazards Over Place and Time," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(5), pages 913-937, December.
    11. Olfa Frini & Christophe Muller, 2017. "Fertility Regulation Behavior: Sequential Decisions in Tunisia," Working Papers halshs-01624778, HAL.
    12. Julia Bock-Schappelwein & Rainer Eppel & Ulrike Mühlberger, 2009. "Sozialpolitik als Produktivkraft," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 82(11), pages 845-857, November.
    13. Vanleenhove, Pieter, 2013. "Full childcare coverage: higher maternal labour supply and childcare usage?," EUROMOD Working Papers EM19/13, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    14. Eva Garcia-Moran & Zoe Kuehn, 2017. "With Strings Attached: Grandparent-Provided Child Care and Female Labor Market Outcomes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 23, pages 80-98, January.
    15. Francesco Figari & Edlira Narazani, 2020. "The joint decision of female labour supply and childcare in Italy under costs and availability constraints," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 37(2), pages 411-439, July.
    16. Helmut Rainer & Stefan Bauernschuster & Wolfgang Auer & Natalia Danzer & Mine Hancioglu & Bastian Hartmann & Timo Hener & Christian Holzner & Notburga Ott & Janina Reinkowski & Martin Werding, 2013. "Kinderbetreuung," ifo Forschungsberichte, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 59, October.
    17. Eibich, Peter & Siedler, Thomas, 2020. "Retirement, intergenerational time transfers, and fertility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    18. Trude Lappegård, 2010. "Family Policies and Fertility in Norway," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 26(1), pages 99-116, February.
    19. Rolf Aaberge & Ugo Colombino, 2014. "Labour Supply Models," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Handbook of Microsimulation Modelling, volume 127, pages 167-221, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    20. García-Morán, Eva & Kuehn, Zoe, 2013. "With strings attached: Grandparent-provided child care and female labor market outcomes," MPRA Paper 48953, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:51:y:2018:i:c:p:294-308. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/chieco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.