Pension Expectation and Human Capital Investment in Children: the evidence from pension system unification reform

Kai Gong, School of Economics, Peking University
Volume 1 nos.1 December 2022 ISSN 2755-3272

Keywords

Pension Expectation, Human Capital Investment

Abstract

The pension reform of public sectors that began in 2015 has changed the pension expectation of employees. The paper estimates a difference-in-difference model to assess its effect on household education investment. The empirical results shows that the reform has reduced the average education investment of public sectors households in children by 29.9%, and the education investment in boys has decreased even more. The paper finds that in China, parents’ education investment in kids is related to their own old-age needs, which conveys more egoistic preference, and there is a substitution relationship between educational investment and pension security. The decline of the expected old age security leads to the rise of physical capital investment, which replaces inter-generational human capital investment. The reform has a greater impact on low-income groups and students of poor academic performance. It is the first time to evaluate the impact of the pension transformation on inter-generational human capital investment from the micro level.