How Public Pension and Living Area Shape the Effects of Intergenerational Support Patterns on Older Adults’ Health Level: Evidence from China

Weiyuan Li

This study investigates how public pension and urban-rural residence jointly moderate the relationship between intergenerational support patterns and health among older adults in China. Analyzing longitudinal data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), we identified five distinct support patterns using Gaussian Mixture Models. While patterns characterized by emotional and physical support were generally associated with better health outcomes, this relationship was critically shaped by institutional and spatial contexts. A key finding reveals a significant paradox: urban pensioners, despite their socioeconomic advantages, exhibited significantly worse health when embedded in emotionally/physically reliant patterns compared to their rural counterparts. Conversely, urban residence itself was a strong positive health predictor, yet rural non-pensioners remained vulnerable. These results demonstrate that the health returns of intergenerational support are not uniform but are systematically contingent on the intersection of pension status and living area. The study challenges a simplistic resource-deficit model and underscores the necessity for nuanced, targeted ageing policies that address the complex interplay between family support and formal welfare systems in mitigating health disparities.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session P6. Health, Mortality, and Ageing 2