Risk Behaviors of Only-Child Parents : Evidence from the One-Child Policy in China

This paper examines the impact of having only one child on parental risk behaviors in societies where children serve as a bedrock for elderly support. Employing regional and temporal variation from the enforcement of the One-Child Policy, our instrumental variable estimates show that the only-child parents tend to have a greater tendency of risk avoidance, as consistently revealed by health-related and finance-related behaviors. The results also indicate that the risk avoidance effects of having only-child are intensified in regions with stronger traditions that consider children to be the main source of elderly support, and are buffered in regions with larger scales of civil servant system that indicates better institutional elderly support. The findings underscore the fundamental role of family structure in affecting risk behaviors