The socioeconomic status of adult children, intergenerational support, and the well-being of Chinese older adults

The study investigates how adult children influence the well-being of their elderly parents in China. It examines two pathways: (1) adult children's socioeconomic status (education and financial conditions) and (2) intergenerational support (financial, care, and spiritual). Given China’s Confucian family culture, dependence on children, underdeveloped welfare and eldercare systems, and pronounced urban–rural differences in family structures and services, the authors hypothesize that children’s SES and various forms of support affect older adults’ well-being and may operate via mediation by intergenerational support. The research formulates seven hypotheses testing direct and mediated effects and compares urban versus rural groups and families with one, two, or three-plus children to understand heterogeneity across contexts and family sizes.

Prior work shows mixed effects of intergenerational support on elders’ well-being: financial, care, and emotional support can improve life satisfaction and health, but excessive support may undermine autonomy and self-esteem. Fewer studies assess children’s SES; most focus on education (e.g., Taiwan, Sweden, Mexico, US), with limited attention to income/financial status. Some evidence suggests children’s higher SES benefits parents’ health and is stronger where co-residence is common and welfare is limited. The prevailing explanation posits SES improves support provision, which then benefits parents. However, the relative importance of SES versus direct support and the mediating role of support remain unclear—especially in China with unique cultural norms, uneven welfare, and urban–rural disparities. This study fills that gap by jointly modeling children’s SES and support, testing direct and mediated pathways, and comparing subgroups by urban–rural residence and number of children.

Data: 2014 China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS), a nationally representative, multi-stage probability sample of Chinese adults aged 60+. Coverage: 29 provinces/autonomous regions/municipalities, 134 counties/districts, 462 villages; 11,511 respondents total. Analytic sample: 9,146 older adults with valid data, after excluding missing values (initial 11,201 with children; retained: 1,479 with one child, 2,586 with two, 5,081 with three or more). Missing data were primarily on children’s financial support; deletion deemed appropriate given complexity, large remaining N, and stable demographics pre/post deletion. Measures: - Well-being (latent): self-rated life satisfaction (1–5: very dissatisfied to very satisfied) and self-rated health (1–5: very unhealthy to very healthy). - Intergenerational support (by child, aggregated in SEM): financial support in past 12 months (1–9 brackets of value), care support (household help frequency: 1 almost never to 5 almost every day), spiritual support (reverse-coded concern: 1 frequently to 4 never insufficient concern). - Children’s socioeconomic status: education (1 illiterate to 5 college+); financial condition as perceived by parent (1 very difficult to 5 very affluent). - Controls: elder’s gender (0 male, 1 female), age, marital status (0 married, 1 not), education (1–6), employment (0 not working, 1 working). Design and analysis: Descriptive statistics; Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) for latent constructs; bootstrap tests for mediation. Group comparisons by urban vs rural and by number of children (1, 2, 3+), yielding six models. For families with 2 or 3+ children, indicators from each child (e.g., first, second, third) were combined within latent constructs; CFA suggested similar factor loadings across birth order. Model fit across all six groups met criteria: GFI/AGFI/IFI/CFI > 0.90, RMSEA < 0.08, χ²/df < 5. Composite reliability (CR) > 0.6 and AVE > 0.4 for all constructs.

- Children’s financial conditions (SES) exert a significant, positive, and direct effect on elders’ well-being across all six groups. Standardized total effects: urban—one child 0.360, two children 0.452, multiple children 0.412; rural—one child 0.496, two children 0.468, multiple children 0.443. - Children’s education level shows limited and inconsistent effects: generally non-significant in urban groups with one and two children, but significant for rural groups with two and multiple children; small positive effects for urban multiple-children group (total effect ≈0.098). - Intergenerational support effects vary: • Spiritual support positively predicts well-being in all groups (e.g., urban one-child 0.126; rural one-child 0.215; urban two-children 0.096; rural multiple-children 0.158). • Care support shows positive effects in several groups (e.g., urban two-children 0.106; urban multiple-children 0.062; rural one-child 0.192), but not universally. • Financial support does not have a positive effect overall and is significantly negative in rural two-children group (−0.174). - Mediation by intergenerational support is minimal. Significant but small mediated effects appear for: • Rural one-child: children’s financial condition indirect effect 0.084 via support. • Urban multiple-children: significant indirect effects for both education and financial condition. • Rural multiple-children: small indirect effect for financial condition (≈0.027); education mediation not significant. - Descriptive patterns: urban elders report higher life satisfaction and self-rated health than rural elders; more children associate with slightly higher life satisfaction but lower self-rated health in urban samples; as the number of children increases, both financial and care support per child tend to decrease.

Findings demonstrate that in China the financial well-being of adult children matters more for parents’ well-being than the support children provide. This pattern holds across urban and rural settings and different family sizes, with especially strong effects in rural groups. Contrary to explanations prevalent in prior literature, children’s higher SES in China improves parents’ well-being primarily through direct psychological benefits (e.g., security, pride), not via increased intergenerational transfers. Among support types, spiritual/emotional support is the most consistently beneficial, whereas financial support is not broadly helpful and can even be detrimental in some contexts (e.g., rural two-child families), potentially reflecting issues of dependence or burden. The results underscore the role of China’s cultural norms and incomplete welfare system: older adults care deeply about whether their children are living well, rather than what their children can materially provide. Policy implications include alleviating economic pressures on younger generations (education, employment, housing) to indirectly enhance elders’ well-being.

Intergenerational support from adult children does not uniformly improve Chinese elders’ well-being, whereas children’s financial conditions have strong, consistent, and direct positive effects. Education of children has weaker and inconsistent associations. Mediation through intergenerational support is limited, indicating that adult children’s SES influences parents’ well-being largely directly. Ensuring that adult children live well can be viewed as a key route to enhancing parents’ well-being. Policy should prioritize improving young adults’ financial circumstances to indirectly benefit older parents, while families may focus on children’s career development and maintaining strong emotional bonds with elders.

- Data are from CLASS 2014; social and demographic changes since then may affect generalizability. Future research should use updated waves. - Children’s financial condition was parent-reported and subjective; combining subjective with objective income/wealth measures is recommended in future studies to refine SES–well-being estimates and assess health inequalities.