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Monetary transfers from children and the labour supply of elderly parents: evidence from Vietnam

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  • Ha Trong Nguyen
  • Amy Y.C. Liu
  • Alison L. Booth

Abstract

In the absence of a broad-based pension scheme, the elderly in developing countries may rely on monetary transfers made by their children and on their own labour supply. This paper examines whether monetary transfers from children help to reduce elderly parents’ need to work. Taking the possible endogeneity of children’s transfers in the parents’ labour supply into account and using maximum likelihood methods and Vietnamese data, we find that monetary transfers help the elderly cope with risks associated with old age or illness. At the same time, however, monetary transfers are not sufficient to fully substitute for parents’ labour supply.

Suggested Citation

  • Ha Trong Nguyen & Amy Y.C. Liu & Alison L. Booth, 2012. "Monetary transfers from children and the labour supply of elderly parents: evidence from Vietnam," CEPR Discussion Papers 664, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    • Handle: RePEc:auu:dpaper:664
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    Cited by:

    1. Hien, Nguyen Thi Thu, 2019. "Consequences of urban migration of adult children for the elderly left-behind in rural Vietnam," OSF Preprints zxyf8, Center for Open Science.
    2. Ha Trong Nguyen & Luke B. Connelly, 2017. "The Dynamics of Informal Care Provision in an Australian Household Panel Survey: Previous Work Characteristics and Future Care Provision," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(302), pages 395-419, September.
    3. Stefano Bosi & Thai Ha‐Huy & Cao‐Tung Pham & Ngoc‐Sang Pham, 2022. "Ascendant altruism and asset price bubbles," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 18(4), pages 532-551, December.
    4. Hao-yu Hu & Wei Wang & Da-wei Feng & Hua-lei Yang & Zhong-kun Zhu, 2022. "Number of Children and Monetary Transfers to Elderly Parents in Rural China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 593-615, January.
    5. Le, Huong Thu & Homel, Ross, 2015. "The impact of child labor on children's educational performance: Evidence from rural Vietnam," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-13.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    old-age support; labour supply; inter-generational transfers; endogenous variable; maximum likelihood;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

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