Spillover Effects of Rural Pension on Child’s Marriage Decision: Case Study of NRPS in China

Marriage rates in China have declined markedly over the past decade, raising increasing concern among policymakers and scholars of family behavior. As part of the country’s broader pension reform, the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) was introduced to improve old-age security for informal-sector workers. This study examines whether parental participation in the NRPS affects the marriage decisions of their adult children through intergenerational channels. Using three waves (2011, 2013, and 2015) of data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), I find that continuous participation of both parents in the NRPS increases the likelihood of children’s marriage by about 7–8 percentage points. The results are robust across alternative specifications and subsample analyses. Further evidence suggests that the NRPS promotes children’s marriage primarily by reinforcing the raising-children-for-old-age (RSOA) motive and by reducing parents’ caregiving needs. By highlighting the intergenerational spillover of social insurance on household formation, this study extends the literature on family responses to public pension programs and provides policy insights for addressing declining marriage and fertility rates in developing economies. JEL Code: J12 Labor and Demographic Economics, Demographic Economics, Marriage