Grandfathers and Grandsons: Social Security Expansion and Child Health in China

We examine the multigenerational association of a nationwide social pension program in China, the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS). The NRPS was rolled out on full scale in 2012, and rural enrollees over age 60 are eligible to receive an average of 102 yuan noncontributory monthly pension. We leverage age eligibility and variations in pension receipt to identify the intergenerational associations between the NRPS and health among grandchildren. We find that the NRPS substantially increases child weight without impacting height. Overall, the child body mass index z-score increases by 0.87, which is largely driven by grandfathers’ pension receipt raising rates of overweight and obesity among grandsons. Among the potential mechanisms, our findings are more plausibly explained by a mixture of income increase, knowledge bias of coresiding grandparents on childcare, and son preference. Potential biases from differential reporting of primary caregivers and epigenetic transmissions unlikely drive our findings.