Brothers, sisters, and support to older parents: separate spheres across and within support types?

Ho, Christine and McGarry, Kathleen (2025) Brothers, sisters, and support to older parents: separate spheres across and within support types? Journal of Population Economics, 38 (1). ISSN 0933-1433

Text (Ho and McGarry (2025) Separate Spheres) - Accepted Version Repository staff only until 7 February 2026. Download (610kB)

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Abstract

Adult children, especially sons, are often considered a linchpin of support to older parents in many patriarchal societies. We develop a model of transfers from adult children to older parents as existing in separate spheres depending on the child’s gender and type of transfer. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we find strong evidence of such differentiation. Coresidential support comes almost exclusively from sons as do large transfers, while daughters are more likely to make smaller transfers. Interestingly, crowding-out of financial transfers by siblings occurs primarily within gender: sons give less when they have more brothers but not when they have more sisters, and daughters give less when they have more sisters but not when they have more brothers. This pattern is present for both in-kind and cash transfers, suggesting that support from adult children may not be substitutable between genders, even for relatively fungible currencies.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025.
Divisions:	LSE
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences
JEL classification:	D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D13 - Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J13 - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J14 - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
Date Deposited:	11 Mar 2025 10:24
Last Modified:	10 Apr 2025 11:45
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/127537

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