Parental Care and Self-reported Health of Married Women: Evidence from Urban China

Informal care is the primary elderly-support pattern in China, and women have taken the main responsibility of caregiving. A sharp decline in government support for care provision and the fast population aging have increased the care burden on the women in the family. With the data derived from China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) and ordered-probit model, we try to examine the relation between hours of parental care and self-reported health of married women in urban China. Our results show that married women would report much worse health if hours caring for parent-in-law increase, with the probability of “Excellent” and “Good” health reduced, and the probability of “Fair” and “Poor’ health increased. It is possibly concluded that traditional patrilineal familial norms still play a role in shaping intra-household allocation in urban China as hour burden of caregiving for parent-in-law would significantly strengthen married women’s mental stress whereas taking care of own parents not. We should pay more attention to the negative impact of increasing parental care burden on the emotional and physical health and wellbeing of married women. Changes should be made to China’s existing eldercare policies, especially establishment of formal and inform support system to the women caregivers.