RIEB Discussion Paper Series No.2025-21

Title

Family Head and Household Educational Expenditure in Three-generation Households: Evidence from China

Abstract

A substantial proportion of Chinese families comprises three generations living together. This study employed data extracted from the 2010 China Family Panel to examine the differences between grandparent- and parentheaded households in the allocation of family resources to children's education and investigate the causes of these differences. Additionally, we examined the role of children's educational stage in influencing the differences in educational expenditure when grandparents or parents served as family heads. Based on the Tobit regression, we found that parent-headed households spend more on education than grandparent-headed households. This difference may arise because parents' decision-making regarding educational expenditure is more altruistic than that of grandparents. We suggest that parents serving as both household heads and primary caregivers benefit children's education. This study fills an important literature gap because it highlights the family head's significance in three-generation households and also elucidates the differences between grandparents and parents in their motives for educational expenditures.

Keywords

Three-generation; Grandparents; Education expenditure; Altruism; Exchange motive

JEL Classification

D64, D91, D13, J13

Inquiries

Xiangyun YIN
Faculty of Economics, Osaka University of Economics and Law
Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University

Yosuke SASAKI
Faculty of Economics, Niigata Sangyo University
Center for Computational Social Science, Kobe University