The impact of rural adult children’s migration on intergenerational support to parents: the moderating effect of clan culture

O impacto da migração de crianças adultas rurais no apoio intergeracional aos pais: o efeito moderador da cultura do clã

ABSTRACT:

Rural adult children’s migration has raised growing concerns about the weakness in children’s intergenerational support to their left-behind parents. Based on the data from the China Family Panel Studies, this paper systematically analyzed the impact of rural adult children’s migration on intergenerational support to their middle-aged and elderly left-behind parents and further explores the moderating effect of clan culture on it. It has found that the migration of rural adult children does not weaken intergenerational support for their parents across the board, but affects the forms of intergenerational support; that is, it changes from “serving on the side” to “focusing on material”, and from “face-to-face” emotion comfort to “network” communication. The traditional clan culture has not eased the shift in the forms of children’s intergenerational support but strengthened the financial support. These findings are relevant for an efficient policy design of care for left-behind parents worldwide.

Key words:
children’s migration; Intergenerational support; Left-behind parents; Clan culture; Informal family support

RESUMO:

A migração de crianças adultas rurais suscitou preocupações crescentes sobre a fragilidade do apoio intergeracional das crianças aos seus pais que ficaram para trás. Com base nos dados dos China Family Panel Studies, este artigo analisa sistematicamente o impacto da migração de crianças adultas rurais no apoio intergeracional aos seus pais de meia-idade e idosos que ficaram para trás e explora ainda mais o efeito moderador da cultura do clã sobre ela. Constatou-se que a migração de crianças adultas rurais não enfraquece o apoio intergeracional aos seus pais em todos os domínios, mas afeta as formas de apoio intergeracional; ou seja, muda de “servir ao lado” para “focar no material”, e de conforto emocional “face a face” para comunicação “em rede”. A cultura tradicional do clã não facilitou a mudança nas formas de apoio intergeracional das crianças, mas reforçou o apoio financeiro. Estes resultados são relevantes para uma conceção eficiente de políticas de cuidados para pais que ficaram para trás em todo o mundo.

Palavras-chave:
migração infantil; Apoio intergeracional; pais que ficaram para trás; Cultura de clãs; Apoio familiar informal

INTRODUCTION

With the rapid population aging worldwide, how to care for the aging population has received growing attention (LI et al., 2021). Informal family support can be a stabilizing force for the care of older people in settings where the formal care system is either missing or contains gaps (GLASER et al., 2004; LAFAVE et al., 2017). This is particularly true in rural China, where the cultural heritage and norms surrounding filial piety obligate children to deliver material aid and care for their aging parents. Rural families have formed a traditional pension system based on child support, and such an intergenerational “feedback” model has long been an important basis for sustaining parents’ welfare in their old age (SILVERSTEIN et al., 2006a). However, with the progress in urbanization and industrialization, a massive amount of rural working-age labor in China has migrated to urban areas and transferred to non-agricultural employment, and the migration has shown the characteristics of “incompleteness”; that is, their parents have not migrated to urban areas together with their adult children, but stayed behind in rural areas. Such a kind of migration has altered traditional living arrangements of residing with aging parents and patterns of intergenerational support (SILVERSTEIN et al., 2006b). The greater space separation between the generations may make adult children feel hard to support their aging parents, or even lead to the estrangement of the intergenerational relationship. Therefore, concerns are raised about whether rural adult children’s migration undermines the traditional intergenerational support mechanisms for aging parents.

The values regarding adult children’s intergenerational support for their parents in China are rooted in the kinship-based Chinese clan culture (ZHANG, 2019). Chinese clan culture mainly consists of clan rules, family laws, etiquette, customs, and habits gradually formed by clan members, and becomes the total of clan members’ behavioral norms such as daily living, production, and communication. “Filial piety”, as the core value of Chinese clan society, is the most important part of traditional clan culture (XU, 2014). Clan culture not only regulates standards of how children support parents in terms of material aid and emotional comfort but also creates a certain binding force for child support by public opinion evaluation; that is, whether to well support parents is an important basis for moral evaluation in self and interpersonal communication (XU, 2014). If adult children shirk their duty of supporting their aging parents, there will be stigma costs and loss of social capital (ZHANG, 2019). Although, China has already transitioned from a traditional society to a modern society, clan culture is still prevalent and has a deep-rooted impact on the lives of rural residents. In particular, with the revitalization and construction of rural culture recently, a series of activities to inherit and revitalize clan culture have emerged in rural areas, such as the construction of genealogies and ancestral halls and the establishment of clan associations. As a result, we expected that clan culture can play an important role in strengthening intergenerational support to aging parents after the migration of adult children.

Recent studies have drawn increasing attention to the impact of children’s migration on intergenerational support to aging parents, but have not reached a consensus. Intergenerational support from adult children usually includes three inseparable sub-aspects: financial support, daily care, and emotional support, which correspond to different types of old-age support demands of the elderly (LIU et al., 2022; SILVERSTEIN et al., 2006a). The influences of migration on different sub-aspects of intergenerational support are not consistent mainly due to the differences in time-space constraints (TIAN & XU, 2020). Specifically, financial support is less restricted by geographic separation. Some researchers have found that migrant adult children can provide more financial support to their parents because of increasing income after the migration (CAI et al., 2022; ZIMMER & KNODEL, 2013; XIANG et al., 2016; TIAN & XU, 2020). Though, some other studies have found that due to various reasons such as the limited salary of migrant work and the rising cost of living in cities, migrant children have not significantly increased the financial support for their left-behind parents (ANTMAN, 2013; HE & YE, 2014; THAPA et al., 2020). In comparison, daily care and emotional comfort are greatly constrained by geographic separation. A selection of studies has confirmed that migration of adult children has reduced the daily care and emotional support for their parents (SCHEFFEL & ZHANG, 2019; ANTMAN, 2010), and thus aggravates the physical and mental health problems of the left-behind parents (XIANG et al., 2016; SONG, 2017). But another strand of the literature suggested that children’s migration increases the possibility of left-behind parents’ intergenerational care for grandchildren in which aging parents can achieve self-realization and employ this bond to strengthen emotional communication with their migrant children (TIAN & XU, 2020; TEERAWICHITCHAINAN & LOW, 2021; LEIMER & VAN EWIJK, 2022). Besides, the important role of clan culture for migrant adults regarding entrepreneurship, informal financing, and employment has been empirically confirmed (CHEN & CHEN, 2018; JIANG et al., 2022; XIONG et al., 2021; HOU et al., 2022). Several studies have also explored the impact of clan culture on arrangements made for old-age support. It is found that clan culture is positively related to family support, and thus improves the mental health of older people, whereas a significantly negative relationship between clan culture and enrollment in social pension programs is found (CHO, 2003; ZHANG et al., 2019; LIU et al., 2021).

However, several limitations still exist in the existing literature. First, the measurement of migrant children’s intergenerational support ignores the changes in the ways of emotional support with the rapid popularization of modern communication technology. The widespread use of mobile phones and mobile Internet has greatly facilitated intergenerational communication, and the emotional support of migrant children is more diverse rather than limited to face-to-face communication. Second, although, the existing research has realized the importance of clan culture in maintaining family pension, little is known about the effect of clan culture on migrant adult children’s intergenerational support. Third, the possible endogenous problems mainly caused by “self-selection bias” in estimation are not fully considered. If the children decide to go out to work due to their characteristics (such as a weak concept of filial piety, tense relationship with their parents, etc.), then it is hard to say that the influence of migration itself on their intergenerational support is causal. This also could be one of the important reasons for the mixed results in the existing literature.

Therefore, based on the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this paper theoretically and empirically analyzes the impact of migration of rural adult children on intergenerational support (including financial support, daily care, and emotional support) to their middle-aged and elderly parents, and further explores the moderating effect of clan culture on it. We try to contribute to the existing literature in the following ways. First, we measured emotional support through both face-to-face and communication tools, which better reflects the trend in migrant children’s intergenerational support to parents under the prevalence of modern communication technology. Second, we provided empirical evidence for the moderating effect of clan culture on the association between migration and children’s intergenerational support and further explore the heterogeneity in the moderating effect regarding different sub-aspects of intergenerational support. This information can help find whether and how clan culture plays a role in promoting intergenerational support in the context of mass adult children’s migration. Third, the possible problem of self-selection bias is taken into consideration to get more reliable estimations.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

The migration of rural adult children is mainly reflected in the employment sectors and employment location, that is, from the agricultural sector to the non-agricultural sector, and from rural areas to urban areas. The transfer of rural labor to the non-agricultural sector usually leads to higher wage rates (LEWIS, 1954). Time allocation theory shows that changes in wage rates will affect the time allocation decisions of migrant adult children, triggering the substitution of market work time and household production time (BECKER, 1965). In other words, the rise in wage rates has increased the cost of household production relatively, and thus it prompts migrant children to increase the time spent on market work to earn income and reduces the time spent on household goods and services production, including caring for their parents. Also, the change in the employment location of migrant children from rural to urban areas has widened the spatial distance between generations, which increases the cost of caring for parents face-to-face. It reflects in higher time cost (such as urban-rural round-trip time) and higher monetary cost (such as transportation costs) for migrant children to provide daily care or face-to-face emotional support to their parents, and as a result, such two aspects of intergenerational support could be reduced after the migration (CAI et al., 2021; GUO et al., 2018).

However, the theory of altruism suggested that children can obtain utility by providing intergenerational support to their aging parents, especially in rural areas where filial piety culture is deeply rooted and children have a strong altruistic preference for providing intergenerational support to their parents (NING & WANG, 2015). In this case, although, daily care and face-to-face emotional support for their parents could be reduced due to geographic distance restrictions after migration, migrant children are motivated to find other less space-constrained forms of support to compensate. Specifically, increased income from migrant employment offers a potential opportunity for migrant children to provide more financial support for their parents (CONG & SILVERSTEIN, 2011; ZIMMER & KNODEL, 2013). Besides, the development of information and communication technologies has provided new means of intergenerational emotional communication, thereby migrant children can use communication tools rather than be limited to the face-to-face way for providing emotional support (CARVALHO et al., 2015). Information and communication technologies including both hardware (such as computers, and smartphones) and software (such as online social networks) have progressively become part of everyday lives. The popularization of information and communication technologies has broken through the spatial limitations of emotional communication and effectively reduced the transaction cost of emotional communication between migrant children and their parents. Therefore, we proposed the following two hypotheses.

Hypothesis 1: The migration of rural adult children has strengthened financial support but weakened the daily care and face-to-face emotional support for their parents. Migrant children’s intergenerational support is changing from “serving on the side” to “focusing on material”.

Hypothesis 2: The migration of rural adult children has strengthened emotional support through communication tools for their parents. Migrant children’s emotional support is changing from “face-to-face” mode to “network communication”.

The traditional clan culture with filial piety as the core content still has a deep-rooted impact in rural areas, and it is expected to contribute to stronger family ties and obligations of migrant children to support their aging parents. Clan culture regulates standards of how children support parents in terms of material aid and emotional comfort, and whether to well support parents is an important basis for social activities such as moral evaluation and interpersonal communication. If adult children shirk their duty of supporting their aging parents, they will feel guilty and be frowned upon as being unfilial by other people (ZHANG, 2019). Hence, it creates a certain binding force by public opinion evaluation for migrant children’s intergenerational support. Besides, clan network rooted in clan culture also plays a role. Unfilial children are hard to obtain the support of traditional social capital such as clan networks (XU, 2014), whereas clan networks play an important role in the process of adult children migrating to urban employment and daily life (CHEN & CHEN, 2018; JIANG et al., 2022; XIONG et al., 2021). Considering the stigma costs and loss of social capital, the incentive influence of clan culture on intergenerational support of migrant children could be no less than formal systems such as laws and regulations. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis.

Hypothesis 3: Clan culture can strengthen migrant children’s intergenerational support for their parents.

DATA AND METHOD

Data sources

The data were drawn from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). CFPS is a nationwide, comprehensive longitudinal social survey project covering 25 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) across the country. The multi-stage, implicit stratification, and probability proportion to size sampling methods are used. The survey has been conducted every two years since the baseline survey in 2010 and the data fully disclosed includes the data from 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016. This study uses data from 2016, as it contains variables related to clan culture as well as variables related to the migration and intergenerational support, which fully supports our analysis. Specifically, with reference to NING & WANG (2015) and LIU et al. (2020), rural adult children who are aged 18 and above and has at least one of the parents being middle-aged and elderly people (age is greater than and equal to 45 years old) are selected as the analysis samples. Children who are over 65 years old or at school are excluded due to weak support ability. Besides, considering that the number and type of adult children’s siblings generally do not change over time, CFPS only collected siblings’ information in the 2010 baseline survey, while the subsequent three surveys did not investigate the number of siblings (FANG & CHEN, 2021). To obtain important information on siblings to control for the household structure characteristics, the 2016 CFPS data were matched with the 2010 CFPS data. Finally, 7171 valid samples were obtained in this study.

Empirical strategy

To estimate the influence of adult children’s migration on their intergenerational support to parents, the following model is constructed:

$Y_i=F(\mathrm{}{M}_i\mathrm{},\mathrm{}{Z}_i\mathrm{},{\epsilon }_i\mathrm{})$(1)

Y_i represents the intergenerational support of the i-th sample, including financial support, daily care, face-to-face emotional support, and emotional support through communication tools; M_i is a dummy variable indicating the migration status of adult children (migration=1, non-migration= 0); Z|_i are a set of control variables; 𝜀_i denotes the random disturbance terms. Specifically, according to the characteristics of the explained variables Y_i, this paper selects different estimation methods to estimate the equation (1). Since financial support is measured by the detailed quantity, a non-negative continuous variable with a large number of 0, the Tobit model is chosen for estimation, while both emotional support and daily care are assessed by frequency, the ordered multi-value discrete variables, the Ordered Probit model is selected for estimation.

However, there may be an endogeneity problem mainly caused by “self-selection” when the impact of adult children’s migration on their intergenerational support is estimated. If children decided to migrate to urban areas due to their characteristics related to the level of intergenerational support, the estimated result could be biased. For example, adult children who have a bad relationship with their parents and have a weak concept of filial piety are more willing to migrate and the support provided by these children to their parents is low simultaneously. We try to solve this problem through two methods. The first is to incorporate important explained variables such as children’s filial piety concepts and intergenerational relationships into the control variables. Because the self-selection problem can be regarded as a special type of missing variable problem, which can be solved by controlling more related variables (CARMAN & ZHANG, 2012). The second is to employ the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method for further estimation. With other observable features keeping similar, PSM can help compare the differences in intergenerational support between migrant children and non-migrant children, and thus it helps solve the problem of estimation bias caused by self-selection (ROSENBAUM & RUBIN, 1983).

In addition, to further analyze the moderating effect of traditional clan culture on the association between children’s migration and their intergenerational support to parents, this paper incorporates the cross-term of traditional clan cultural variables (C_i) and migration variables (M_i * C_i) into the equation (1). The estimation method of equation (2) is the same as the basic model. If the cross-term coefficient obtained is positive, it reflects that the traditional clan culture can strengthen migrant children’s intergenerational support for their parents.

$Y_i=F(\mathrm{}{M}_i\mathrm{},M_i\mathrm{*}{C}_i\mathrm{},\mathrm{}{Z}_i\mathrm{},{\epsilon }_i\mathrm{})$(2)

Measurement of variables

Children’s intergenerational support to Parents

Children’s intergenerational support to parents consists of three sub-dimension: financial support, daily care, and emotional support. The financial support is measured by the average monthly amount of money and goods (converted into money) provided by children for their parents in the past 6 months. Daily care is assessed by the frequency of children’s care for their parents in the past 6 months (such as doing housework, physical care, and rehabilitation). Emotional support included both face-to-face way and network communication. The former is measured by the frequency of children visiting their parents in the past 6 months and the latter is measured by the frequency of communication with their parents through communication tools in the past 6 months.

Migration of rural adult children

The migration of rural adult children is the core explanatory variable concerned in this paper, which specifically indicates rural adult children migrate from rural to urban areas to work in non-agricultural sectors (JIA et al., 2017). The CFPS cannot directly identify the migration status of adult children, hence, an indirect method is used to identify the migration status by the respondent’s household registration, main job type, and current living location (YE et al., 2017). When the respondent belongs to the rural household registration but currently lives in the urban areas and mainly engaged in non-agricultural work, the respondent is identified as “a migrant child”. The migration variable is set as a dummy variable, with a value of 1 representing migration, and a value of 0 representing non-migration.

Clan culture

Clan culture is the moderator of the association between migration and children’s intergenerational support, and it is measured by the existence of genealogy in the household. Genealogy is an essential material carrier and a key theme of clan culture, and lineage membership in areas with a strong atmosphere of clan culture is more inclined to make or renew the genealogy (CHENG et al., 2021). It not only records the lineage figures and deeds of clans based on patrilineal descendants, but also formulates family rules, training, and mottos to regulate the daily behavior of lineage membership such as filial piety. Therefore, genealogy is often used as a valid proxy variable for clan culture intensity, and adult children with genealogies are more deeply influenced by traditional clan culture (GREIF & TABELLINI, 2017; LIU et al., 2021; CHENG et al., 2021). A dummy variable reflecting whether or not there is a genealogy in the family is used as a proxy variable for clan culture intensity.

Covariates

Several important individual, household, and village characteristics are also included in the model as covariates according to previous studies (LIN et al., 2003; ZHANG et al., 2019). The characteristics of children include age, gender, education level, marital status, income, number of children, etc. Household characteristics include the age of the parents, education level of the parents, parents’ intergenerational support to children, intergenerational relationships, the number of brothers and sisters, etc; In addition, to eliminate the impact of regional differences, the paper further controls for the existence of elderly care facilities in the village and provincial dummy variables. The detailed definitions and descriptive statistics of the main variables are shown in table 1.

Table 1
Definitions and Descriptive Statistics of Variables.

Variables	--------------------------------Definition of Variables-------------------------------	---Mean---	Standard deviation
Financial support	The average monthly amount of financial support given to parents by respondents in the past 6 months (RMB)	245.77	599.41
Daily care	Frequency of caring for parents in the past 6 months, increasing from 0 (never) to 6 (almost every day)	1.72	2.33
Face-to-face emotional support	Frequency of meeting with parents face to face in the past 6 months, increasing from 0 (never) to 6 (almost every day)	3.97	2.00
Emotional support through communication tools	Frequency of communication with parents by communication tools in the past 6 months, increasing from 0 (never) to 6 (almost every day)	2.93	2.15
Migration	Whether the respondent is migrant, no = 0, yes = 1	0.39	0.49
Age	Respondent’s age	40.45	10.32
Gender	Respondent’s gender, female = 0, male = 1	0.50	0.50
Education years	Respondent's years of education	6.97	4.59
Marital status	Whether the respondent has an alive spouse, no = 0, yes = 1	0.87	0.33
Income	Respondent's income over the past 12 months, logarithmic	2.07	4.08
Clan culture	The existence of genealogy in the household, no = 0, yes = 1	0.25	0.44
Number of children	Number of living children of respondents	1.52	0.97
Age of parents	The average age of the respondents' parents	67.52	11.79
Education of parents	The highest educational level of parents, illiteracy = 1, elementary school = 2, junior high school = 3, high school and above = 4	2.06	0.97
Parents’financial support	Whether parents provided financial assistance for the respondent in the past 6 months, no=0, yes=1	0.10	0.29
Parents’daily care	Whether parents helped respondents with housework or grandchildren in the past 6 months, no=0, yes=1	0.32	0.47
Intergenerational relationship	Respondent's relationship with parents in the past 6 months, Improving from 1 (very bad) to 5 (very close)	4.30	0.70
Number of brothers	Number of respondent’s living brothers	1.08	1.14
Number of sisters	Number of respondent’s living sisters	1.16	1.24
Elderly care facilities	The existence of retirement homes in the village, no = 0, yes = 1	0.44	0.50

Descriptive statistics

Table 2 presents the differences in intergenerational support between migrant children and non-migrant children in rural areas. In terms of financial support, the average monthly financial support provided by migrant children for their parents is 277.23 CNY, which is significantly higher than that provided by non-migrant children for their parents (225.55 CNY). But in terms of daily care, the frequency of care provided by migrant children for their parents is lower than that of non-migrant children. In terms of emotional support, the average frequency of migrant children visiting their parents is significantly lower than that of non-migrant children, while the average frequency of communicating with parents through communication tools is significantly higher than that of non-migrant children. It reflects to some extent that migrant children may strengthen financial support and employ communication tools to make up for the lack of daily care and face-to-face emotional communication.

Table 2
Comparison of intergenerational support between migrant children and non-migrant children.

Variables	------------Migrant Children----------		---------Non-migrant Children-------		-------T-test-------
	Mean	Standard deviation	Mean	Standard deviation
Financial support	277.23	12.92	225.55	8.13	51.68***
Daily care	1.45	0.04	1.90	0.04	-0.44***
Face-to-face emotional support	3.57	0.04	4.23	0.03	-0.66***
Emotional support through communication tools	3.17	1.86	2.78	0.03	0.39***

• Note: ^***, ^** and ^* denote significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% levels, respectively.

EMPIRICAL RESULTS

The impact of rural adult children’s migration on intergenerational support

Table 3 reports the estimated results of equation (1). Column (1) presents the average marginal effect of migration on children’s quantity of financial support by using the Tobit model, and columns (2)-(4) present the impact of migration on the frequency of daily care, the frequency of face-to-face emotional support, and the frequency of emotional support through communication tools by using the Ordered Probit model. The results showed that migration of rural adult children has a significantly negative effect on the frequency of daily care and face-to-face emotional support to their parents, whereas a significantly positive effect is observed on financial support. The average monthly financial support provided for parents by migrant children is about 39 CNY higher than that of non-migrant children. It is consistent with hypothesis 1 that children’s intergenerational support is somewhat changing from “serving on the side” to “focusing on material” after migration. Besides, the estimated coefficient of migration on the frequency of emotional support through communication tools is positive and significant at the 1% statistical level, indicating that migrant children make up for the decrease in face-to-face emotional support by using communication tools to a certain extent. These results support hypothesis 2 that children’s emotional support is changing from “face-to-face” mode to “network communication” after migration.

Table 3
The impact of rural adult children's migration on intergenerational support.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
	Financial support	Daily care	Face-to-face emotional support	Emotional support through communication tools
Migration	39.387***	- 0.098***	- 0.282***	0.158***
	（12.262）	(0.031)	(0.029)	(0.028)
Age	- 1.267	0.003	0.009***	- 0.013***
	（0.996）	(0.003)	(0.003)	(0.003)
Gender	53.138***	0.253***	0.613***	- 0.319***
	（11.85）	(0.031)	(0.029)	(0.028)
Education years	8.444***	0.006	0.005	0.022***
	（1.416）	(0.004)	(0.003)	(0.003)
Marital status	- 64.686***	- 0.296***	- 0.063	0.029
	(23.138)	(0.052)	(0.051)	(0.045)
Income	5.259***	- 0.008**	- 0.032***	0.001
	(1.599)	(0.004)	(0.004)	(0.003)
Clan culture	- 4.906	0.007	-0.014	0.021
	(12.280)	(0.035)	(0.031)	(0.030)
Number of children	- 1.589	- 0.046**	- 0.041**	- 0.030
	(6.839)	(0.020)	(0.019)	(0.019)
Age of parents	3.769***	0.034***	0.013***	- 0.026***
	(0.956)	(0.003)	(0.003)	(0.003)
Parents’ education level
Primary school	4.365	- 0.055	- 0.043	0.091***
	(13.02)	(0.036)	(0.033)	(0.033)
Junior high school	29.843*	-0.067	- 0.000	0.078**
	(17.040)	(0.044)	(0.040)	(0.039)
High school and above	- 27.590	- 0.074	- 0.027	0.130***
	(19.692)	(0.057)	(0.053)	(0.050)
Parents’financial support	14.331	0.359***	0.144***	0.209+
	(19.645)	(0.048)	(0.049)	(0.047)
Parents’daily care	113.721***	0.608***	0.787***	0.230***
	(15.349)	(0.036)	(0.037)	(0.033)
Number of brothers	- 2.341	- 0.115***	- 0.089***	0.020
	(4.754)	(0.016)	(0.014)	(0.015)
Number of sisters	1.438	- 0.007	- 0.029**	-0.008
	(4.057)	(0.013)	(0.012)	(0.013)
Intergenerational relationship	43.800***	0.099***	0.042**	0.217***
	(7.651)	(0.022)	(0.020)	(0.019)
Elderly care facilities	- 24.34**	- 0.009	0.143***	0.111***
	（11.555）	(0.032)	(0.029)	(0.028)
Province fixed effect	Control	Control	Control	Control
Observations	7,171	7,171	7,171	7,171

• Note: Standard errors are provided in parentheses. ^***, ^** and ^* denote significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% levels, respectively. ; The highest educational level of parents is based on illiteracy as a reference group.

In addition, the estimated results of the control variables are almost consistent with expectations and previous studies. For example, in terms of children’s characteristics, males play a greater role in almost all aspects of intergenerational support to parents than females, reflecting the traditional pension model of “son-dominated, daughter-assisted” in rural areas (ZHANG et al., 2019). Unmarried adult children with higher education levels and income levels can provide more financial support to their parents (STEELMAN et al., 2002), while the face-to-face emotional support and daily care provided by married children with higher income and more children decrease. In terms of household characteristics, better intergenerational relationships and parents’ intergenerational support to children can contribute to more children’s intergenerational support to their parents. The increase in the number of brothers and sisters can to some extent reduce the burden of visiting and caring for parents compared with the only child.

Robust check

We first checked the robustness of the estimated results by adjusting the measurement of the dependent variable. A dummy variable is introduced to measure children’s intergenerational support instead of the detailed quantity or frequency (ZHANG et al., 2019). For example, if there exists children’s financial support (the quantity of financial support is larger than 0), then the dummy variable is defined as 1, otherwise, it is 0, and the Probit model is used for regression estimation. The results are shown in table 4. Children’s migration increases the probability of providing financial support and emotional support through communication tools by 8.8% and 26%, respectively, but decreases the probability of providing face-to-face emotional support by 13.4%. These results are almost consistent with the results in table 3, showing good robustness of our research.

Table 4
Robustness test: Estimated results of adjustments to the measurement of intergenerational support.

Explained variables	A dummy of financial support	A dummy of daily care	A dummy of face-to-face emotional support	A dummy of emotional support through communication tools
Migration	0.088***	- 0.031	- 0.134**	0.260***
	(0.034)	(0.035)	(0.069)	(0.040)
Control variables	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	7,171	7,171	7,171	7,171

• Note: Standard errors are provided in parentheses. ^***, ^** and ^* denote significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% levels, respectively. The coefficients is the marginal effect. All models control for the full set of covariates as in Table 3.

Moreover, considering the possible self-selection bias in the estimation, we further employ the PSM method for robustness testing. The main principle of PSM is to match the main characteristics of the samples so that the differences in the intergenerational support of migrant children (the treatment group) and non-migrant children (the control group) can be attributed to the difference in migration status. After overlap and balance tests are passed, the nearest neighbor matching method and the kernel matching method commonly used in PSM are employed to match the samples, and then we obtain the difference in the intergenerational support between migrant children and non-migrant children. As shown in table 5, rural migrant children provide more financial support and emotional support through communication tools for their parents than rural non-migrant children, whereas less daily care and face-to-face emotional support. These results showed good robustness of our results in table 3.

Table 5
Robustness test: PSM estimates.

	--Financial support--	------Daily care------	Face-to-face emotional support	Emotional support through communication tools
The nearest neighbor matching method	60.364**	- 0.166**	- 0.480***	0.280***
	(25.08)	(0.073)	(0.068)	(0.066)
The Kernel matching method	48.568**	- 0.170***	- 0.485***	0.303***
	（20.166）	（0.053）	(0.060)	(0.050)
Observations	7,171	7,171	7,171	7,171

• Note: Standard errors are provided in parentheses. ^***, ^** and ^* denote significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% levels, respectively.

The moderating effect of clan culture

We further explored whether clan culture can moderate the association between migration and children’s intergenerational support by introducing the interaction term of migration and clan culture. The estimated results are shown in table 6. The estimated coefficient of the interaction term of migration and clan culture in the financial support equation is positive and significant at the 10% statistical level, but not significant in the other three equations. It indicates that the traditional clan culture could strengthen the financial support of migrant children for their parents, but does not affect the daily care and emotional support of migrant children. In other words, the clan culture has not changed the trend of migrant children’s intergenerational support changing from “serving on the side” to “focusing on material”, but further strengthening financial support in the change. This empirical result is not entirely consistent with research hypothesis 3.

Table 6
The moderating effect of clan culture on the association between migration and children’s intergenerational support.

	Financial support	Daily care	Face-to-face emotional support	Emotional support through communication tools
Migration	26.947	- 0.085**	- 0.284***	0.162***
	(14.374)	(0.036)	(0.033)	(0.032)
Migration*Clan culture	45.981*	-0.050	0.011	- 0.014
	(23.652)	(0.067)	(0.059)	(0.058)
Clan culture	- 24.720	0.027	- 0.018	0.027
	(15.278)	(0.045)	(0.041)	(0.040)
Control variables	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	7,171	7,171	7,171	7,171

• Note: Standard errors are provided in parentheses. ^***, ^** and ^* denote significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% levels, respectively. All models control for the full set of covariates as in table 3.

DISCUSSION

In the prevalence of rural adult children’s migration to urban areas, there are growing concerns about the disruption of children’s intergenerational support to their left-behind parents. We reported the spatial separation between the generations caused by children’s migration reduces the availability of intergenerational support resources for the elderly in rural areas and directly weakens the daily care and face-to-face emotional support greatly constrained by space separation. These results are parallel to the findings from previous studies that have identified the decrease in the daily care and emotional support to parents as the main risk after children’s migration (SCHEFFEL & ZHANG, 2019; ANTMAN, 2010). However, as compensation for it, migrant children have strengthened financial support to their parents. Some studies have suggested that increasing income, the intergenerational raising of grandchildren, and pension resource compensation are important motivations leading to the strengthening of economic support after children’s migration (ZIMMER & KNODEL, 2013; XIANG et al., 2016; TIAN & XU, 2020). In the context of the significant urban-rural gap, rural children can broaden their income channels and increase their income level by migrating to urban areas for non-agricultural work, thus improving their ability to provide financial support for their parents. Also, migrant children become more willing to give financial support due to left-behind parents’ role in taking care of grandchildren and the guilty of not being able to be filial on the side. Besides, we enriched the existing literature by focusing on the new form of emotional support between generations. The development of modern communication technology can help break the constraints of spatial distance, and thus narrow the “emotional distance” between generations. In this way, it can reduce the monetary cost and time cost of emotional support for parents so that migrant children can make up for the lack of face-to-face emotional support. This finding also echoes the study by COTTEN et al. (2013) and YU et al. (2021) who find information and communication technology is an effective tool for reducing loneliness in older people by maintaining social contact with their friends and family. Emotional support through communication tools has become a promising strategy for migrant children to make up for the deficiency of face-to-face emotional comfort.

Furthermore, we find the traditional clan culture has not eased the shift in the forms of children’s intergenerational support induced by migration. That is, the clan culture has further strengthened the migrant children’s financial support to their parents. It indicated that the traditional clan culture with filial piety culture as the core content still has a certain impact on driving the migrant children’s intergenerational support, especially in the positive response to parents’ demands for financial support. Similarly to this, some researchers also find that the clan culture is associated with a higher likelihood of receiving financial transfers from children (ZHANG, 2019). The possible reason is the transformation of traditional clan culture about filial piety with changes in rural society. Compared with doing nothing in rural areas, children who migrat to the city for better work is a manifestation of filial piety. Rural left-behind parents may adjust their filial piety expectations after children’s migration. They don’t expect their children to always serve on the side, but generally expect their children to express their filial piety in some other ways so that they can stand upright in the rural society that emphasizes face-saving and gain the recognition of relatives and neighbors (LUO & ZHAN, 2012). Compared with other forms of family support, financial support is the most visible expression without being limited by spatial separation (HE & YE, 2014). Hence, adult children’s migration could strengthen parents’ expectations of financial support from their children, which becomes a new characteristic of clan culture in the prevalence of children’s migration in rural society (GUO et al., 2009; LUO & ZHAN, 2012). Therefore, the moderating effect of clan culture on migrant children’s intergenerational support is reflected in the strengthening of financial support.

These findings are relevant for an efficient policy design of care for left-behind parents worldwide. It is an inevitable trend for rural adult children to urban areas for work, especially in developing countries. Our research demonstrated that there is no need to worry too much about the weakening of migrant children’s intergenerational support to their parents, but how to adapt to the changes in the forms of intergenerational support should be the key to policy making. Firstly, the development of community-based elderly care services or home-based care services is essential to meet left-behind parents’ demand for daily care and emotional comfort. The reduction of life care and emotional support after children’s migration provides the endogenous impetus for the development of elderly care services, while the strengthening of economic support further provides purchasing power protection. Secondly, it is suggested to promote the construction of rural information and communication network infrastructure and strengthen rural aging parents’ adaptability to intelligent communication tools. As such, it helps lay the foundation for migrant children and left-behind parents to break through the spatial constraint to strengthen emotional communication. Thirdly, policymakers should fully recognize that informal institutions like clan culture constitute important supplements to formal institutions and play a key role in pensions. The inheritance of clan culture with filial piety culture as the core is important to improve children’s sense of responsibility for supporting their parents in the process of urbanization and migration.

In addition, the present study has some limitations. For example, due to the data availability and this paper’s core purpose, the heterogeneity in the impact of migration on intergenerational support regarding different gender and number of migrant children is not included. Besides, the assessment of migration is relatively simple without considering migration distance and time. In future research, it would be interesting to further analyze the heterogeneous impacts in the above conditions.

CONCLUSION

This paper systematically analyzes the impact of migration of rural adult children on intergenerational support to their middle-aged and elderly parents and further explores the moderating effect of clan culture on it. We confirm that the migration of rural adult children does not weaken intergenerational support for their parents across the board, but affects the forms of intergenerational support; that is, it changes from “serving on the side” to “focusing on material”, and from “face-to-face” emotion comfort to “network” communication. This suggested that the traditional pension system based on child support still maintains the strong effects of path dependence in rural society. The traditional clan culture has not eased the shift in the forms of children’s intergenerational support but strengthened the financial support.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by Humanities and Social Science Fund of the Ministry of Education of China (24YJC840003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72003178 and 72333003).

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• CR-2024-0002.R1

Edited by

• Editors
  Alessandro Dal’Col Lúcio (0000-0003-0761-4200)
  Ana Louise de Carvalho Fiúza (0000-0002-3898-1583)

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  16 Dec 2024
• Date of issue
  2025

History

• Received
  03 Jan 2024
• Accepted
  09 Aug 2024
• Reviewed
  18 Oct 2024