Why Do Children Take Care of Their Elderly Parents? Are the Japanese Any Different?

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Asian Development Bank InstituteThe Working Paper series is a continuation of the formerly named Discussion Paper series; the numbering of the papers continued without interruption or change. ADBI's working papers reflect initial ideas on a topic and are posted online for discussion. ADBI encourages readers to post their comments on the main page for each working paper (given in the citation below). Some working papers may develop into other forms of publication. Charles Yuji Horioka is vice president and research professor at the Asian Growth Research Institute, Kitakyushu, Japan. Emin Gahramanov is associate professor at the American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Aziz Hayat and Xueli Tang are senior lecturers at Deakin University, Melbourne Burwood Campus, Burwood, Australia.The views expressed in this paper are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of ADBI, ADB, its Board of Directors, or the governments they represent. ADBI does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequences of their use. Terminology used may not necessarily be consistent with ADB official terms.Working papers are subject to formal revision and correction before they are finalized and considered published. AbstractWe conduct a theoretical and empirical analysis of why children live with (or near) their parents and provide care and assistance to them using microdata from a Japanese household survey, the Osaka University Preference Parameter Study. We find that the Japanese are more likely to live with (or near) their elderly parents and/or to provide care and attention to them if they expect to receive a bequest from them, which constitutes strong support for the strategic bequest motive, but that their caregiving behavior is also heavily influenced by the strength of their altruism toward their parents and social norms.

Fertility decisions of families in an intergenerational exchange model

“…In that case, after capital accumulates sufficiently and after the wage rates become high, parents might increase the number of children as consumption goods (Yakita, 2018a). Horioka et al (2018) empirically show that children's caregiving behavior might also be heavily influenced by altruism toward parents and social norms, although parents are fully altruistic toward children. In this case, parents might have children even without intergenerational exchange.…”

“…YAKITA more attention and care to their elderly parents if they expect to receive a larger bequest from them. 3 However, Horioka et al (2018) did not analyze the fertility decisions of individuals.…”

“…From Equation 14, it follows that if B∕ w > 0, then 1 < . From Equation 4 we obtain which can be rewritten as Using data for Japan, Horioka et al (2018) report that 24% of children residing with parents provide nursing care and that 49% of children are graduates of a college or university. The marginal effect of graduates on elderly care is estimated to be about -0.08.…”

Reconceptualising co-residence in post-growth Japanese society

“…In contemporary societies with stagnated youth transitions, older parents may not become the primary recipients of family support but may instead continue to provide support to their adult children (Izuhara & Forrest, 2013). The driving forces and motivations behind the provision of intergenerational support, such as altruism, obligation and exchange, have also become more diverse and ambiguous (Horioka et al, 2018).…”

Sibling donation games:pure‐altruism,strategic‐altruism,and the interaction of familial and public transfers

“…(2002) construct a multistage game among siblings to shift the burden of parental support through their location choice. Finally, in comparing our results to those in the literature it should be noted that ours is a static formulation, while some models are either multi‐period (Chang, 2009; 2012) or overlapping generations (Yakita, 2001; Hirazawa and Yakita, 2009 and Horioka et al ., 2018).…”