The Effects of Father-in-law’s Retirement on Daughter-in-law’s Labor Participation: Empirical Evidence from China

• Published in: Journal of family and economic issues 2024-09, Vol.45 (3), p.741-755
• Main Authors: Yang, Hua-lei, Tang, Xiao-qing, Cao, Jin-yan, Yang, Li-xingzi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Baby boomers; Children; Daughters; Discontinuity; Families & family life; Family; Family studies; Fathers; Intergenerational relationships; Labor force participation; Law; Mothers; Older people; Original Paper; Participation; Personality and Social Psychology; Retirement; Social Policy; Social Sciences; Sociology
• ISSN: 1058-0476; 1573-3475
• DOI: 10.1007/s10834-023-09920-0

The family division whereby men take charge of external affairs and women take charge of internal affairs is deeply rooted in China. However, female labor participation is surprisingly high, probably because of the mitigating effect of intergenerational support provided by the elderly. As China’s baby boomers retire, this intergenerational support may change. Will this affect women’s labor participation decisions? Research has focused on how maternal retirement impacts biological daughters and the tendency of older generations to focus on the son’s family. Thus, this study takes the son’s family as its research unit. This study uses data from the 2016 and 2018 China Family Panel Studies and a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to explore how the father-in-law’s retirement affects the daughter in-law’s labor participation. It then compares the results with findings on how the mother-in-law’s, father’s, and mother’s retirement affect the daughter-in-law’s, biological son’s, and biological son’s labor participation (respectively). The results show that the father-in-law’s retirement leads to a 58.9% increase in the probability of the daughter’s labor participation, mainly via increased intergenerational time support after the father-in-law retires. Moreover, the effect is heterogeneous according to the daughter’s number of children, household registration, education level, and household income level. Additionally, mother-in-law’s retirement promotes the daughter-in-law’s labor participation, and the parents’ retirement promotes the biological son’s labor participation. Surprisingly, male retirement plays a greater role in promoting labor participation in children. Our results for China should offer a useful reference for countries with a similar East Asian culture.