Human capital investment helps mitigate family caregiving challenges in aging China

Objective: Population aging and shrinking family structures in China are placing unprecedented strain on traditional family-based systems of old-age support. This study develops and applies a capital-based caregiving framework that integrates human capital with the structural dimension of social capital (i.e., kinship networks) to assess the caregiving dynamics within families. We provide the first long-term projection of family caregiving dynamics in China, modeling how rising education--by improving health--can simultaneously enhance caregiving capacity and moderate care needs amid declining kin availability. Methods: We used formal demographic kinship models to project the number and age composition of a broad range of kin for older adults in China from 1950 to 2100, capturing kinship structure as the structural dimension of social capital. Educational attainment and education-specific health gradients were then integrated to model the human capital of each kin member. These dimensions were synthesized into novel health-adjusted kin-dependency ratios to assess caregiving dynamics over time. Results: We find that while the number of working-age kin declines substantially across cohorts, rising education and health among both working-age and older kin enhance caregiving capacity and reduce care needs. Under a rapid educational expansion scenario, the health-adjusted kin-dependency ratio is projected to be approximately 10% lower by 2100 compared to a stalled education scenario, indicating a substantial buffering effect of human capital on aggregate caregiving burdens. Conclusions: Human capital investment, particularly in education, serve as a powerful, though partial, demographic buffer against the family caregiving challenges posed by population aging and shrinking family size. These findings demonstrate that overlooking the human capital composition of kin leads to overly pessimistic assessments of family caregiving capacity. The capital-based framework developed here offers a new perspective for integrating demographic and resource-based approaches to family support, with implications for aging societies beyond China.