Authors: Hau Chyi Shangyi Mao
Publish Date: 2011/04/16
Volume: 13, Issue: 1, Pages: 167-185
Abstract
“Three generations under one roof” is an old Chinese saying used to describe a desired living arrangement The traditional concept of happiness for a Chinese elderly person is being able to “play with grandchildren with candy in mouth enjoy life with no cares” In a fastchanging economy like China how does society especially the elderly themselves view these traditional values Using the 2005 Chinese General Social Survey we study the determinants of happiness of the Chinese elderly We are particularly interested in whether living with their child and whether living with their grandchild affect the happiness of the elderly An important empirical concern is that unobserved permanent income may affect both the living arrangements of the elderly and their level of happiness We include property ownership variables as proxies and also adopt an instrument variable approach to identify the causal relationship between the elderly’s happiness and their living arrangements We find that conditional on living with a grandchild living with one’s child has a negative effect on the elderly’s happiness Furthermore elderly Chinese who live with grandchildren are associated with a much higher degree of happiness than their counterpartsData analyzed in this paper were collected by the research project “China General Social Survey CGSS” sponsored by the China Social Science Foundation This research project was carried out by Department of Sociology Renmin University of China Social Science Division Hong Kong Science and Technology University and directed by Dr Li Lulu Dr Bian Yanjie The authors appreciate the assistance in providing data by the institutes and individuals aforementioned The views expressed herein are the authors’ own
Keywords: