Monetary Transfers from Children and the Labour Supply of Elderly Parents
Evidence from Vietnam
JournalThe Journal of Development Studies
AuthorsHa Nguyen, Amy Y.C. Liu, Alison L. Booth
PublishedAugust 2012
PublisherTaylor & Francis Online
DOI10.1080/00220388.2012.704365
ISSN0022-0388 (Print) 1743-9140 (Online)
Number of Pages15
In the absence of a broad-based pension scheme, the elderly in developing countries may rely on monetary transfers made by their children and on their own labour supply. This article examines whether monetary transfers from children help to reduce elderly parents’ need to work. Taking the possible endogeneity of children’s transfers in the parents’ labour supply into account and using maximum likelihood methods and Vietnamese data, we find that monetary transfers help the elderly cope with risks associated with old age or illness. At the same time, however, monetary transfers are not sufficient to fully substitute for parents’ labour supply
The Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre team acknowledges the Wadjuk Nyungar people as the traditional owners of the land on which the Centre is situated.