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Ceaseless Toil? Health and Labor Supply of the Elderly in Rural China

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  • Dwayne Benjamin
  • Loren Brandt
  • Jia-Zhueng Fan

Abstract

Deborah Davis-Friedmann (1991) described the \"retirement\" pattern of the Chinese elderly in the prereform era as \"ceaseless toil\": lacking sufficient means of support, the elderly had to work their entire lives. In this paper we re-cast the metaphor of ceaseless toil in a labor supply model, where we highlight the role of age and deteriorating health. The empirical focus of our paper is (1) Documenting the labor supply patterns of elderly Chinese; and (2) Estimating the extent to which failing health drives retirement. We exploit the panel dimens ion of the 1991-93-97 waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey, confronting a number of econometric issues, especially the possible contamination of age by cohort effects, and the measurement error of health. In the end, it appears that "ceaseless toil" is also an accurate depiction of elderly Chinese work patterns since economic reform, but failing health only plays a small observable role in explaining declining labor supply over the life-cycle.

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  • Dwayne Benjamin & Loren Brandt & Jia-Zhueng Fan, 2003. "Ceaseless Toil? Health and Labor Supply of the Elderly in Rural China," Working Papers benjamin-03-01, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:benjamin-03-01
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    Cited by:

    1. Lin, Yujie, 2018. "The Impact of China's New Rural Pension Scheme on Family Labor Supply: Does the Beneficiary's Gender Matter?," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274181, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Huang, Bihong & Lian, Yujun & Li, Wensu, 2016. "How far is Chinese left-behind parents' health left behind?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 15-26.
    3. Ning, Manxiu & Gong, Jinquan & Zheng, Xuhui & Zhuang, Jun, 2016. "Does New Rural Pension Scheme decrease elderly labor supply? Evidence from CHARLS," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 315-330.
    4. Giles, John T. & Wang, Dewen & Cai, Wei, 2011. "The Labor Supply and Retirement Behavior of China's Older Workers and Elderly in Comparative Perspective," IZA Discussion Papers 6088, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Chamon, Marcos & Liu, Kai & Prasad, Eswar, 2013. "Income uncertainty and household savings in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 164-177.
    6. Barrientos, Armando, 2012. "What is the Role of Social Pensions in Asia?," ADBI Working Papers 351, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    7. Eric V. Edmonds & Kristin Mammen & Douglas L. Miller, 2005. "Rearranging the Family?: Income Support and Elderly Living Arrangements in a Low-Income Country," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1).
    8. Qiushi Feng & Wei-Jun Jean Yeung & Zhenglian Wang & Yi Zeng, 2019. "Age of Retirement and Human Capital in an Aging China, 2015–2050," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(1), pages 29-62, February.
    9. Rafael NOVELLA & Javier OLIVERA, 2014. "Mental retirement and non-contributory pensions for the elderly poor in Peru," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces14.05, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    10. Cheng, Lingguo & Liu, Hong & Zhang, Ye & Zhao, Zhong, 2018. "The health implications of social pensions: Evidence from China's new rural pension scheme," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 53-77.
    11. Yevgeniy Goryakin & Marc Suhrcke, 2017. "The impact of poor adult health on labor supply in the Russian Federation," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 18(3), pages 361-372, April.
    12. Chen, Zeyuan & Bengtsson, Tommy & Helgertz, Jonas, 2015. "Labor Supply Responses to New Rural Pension Insurances in China: A Regression Discontinuity Approach," Lund Papers in Economic History 139, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    13. Shu, Lei, 2017. "Essays on retirement income provision," Other publications TiSEM e5dd8c4e-03bf-4ec9-9651-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Laura Romeu Gordo, 2011. "Compression of morbidity and the labour supply of older people," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(4), pages 503-513.
    15. de Carvalho Filho, Irineu Evangelista, 2008. "Old-age benefits and retirement decisions of rural elderly in Brazil," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 129-146, April.
    16. Zhao, Zhong, 2007. "Earnings Instability and Earnings Inequality in Urban China: 1989–2006," IZA Discussion Papers 3270, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Zhong Zhao, 2010. "Earnings Instability and Earnings Inequality in Urban China: 1989–2006," Working Papers id:2783, eSocialSciences.
    18. Benxi Lin & Zongjian Lin & Yu Yvette Zhang & Weiping Liu, 2018. "The Impact of the New Rural Pension Scheme on Retirement Sustainability in China: Evidence of Regional Differences in Formal and Informal Labor Supply," Sustainability, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 10(12), pages 1-7, November.
    19. de Brauw, Alan, 2004. "Parents As Public Goods: Theory And Evidence From Rural China," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20298, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    20. Chen, Zeyuan & Bengtsson, Tommy & Helgertz, Jonas, 2015. "Labor Supply Responses to New Rural Social Pension Insurance in China: A Regression Discontinuity Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 9360, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Armando Barrientos, 2011. "Participation and Earnings of Older People in Argentina: Nice Work if You Can Get It?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(7), pages 1061-1079.
    22. Chunliu Gao & Li Cheng & Javed Iqbal & Deqiang Cheng, 2019. "An Integrated Rural Development Mode Based on a Tourism-Oriented Approach: Exploring the Beautiful Village Project in China," Sustainability, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 11(14), pages 1-17, July.
    23. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Tarun Khanna, 2003. "Globalization and Trust: Theory and Evidence from Cooperatives," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp592, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • P36 - Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Consumer Economics; Health; Education and Training; Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty

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