Spillover effects of children's political status on elderly parents' health in China.

BACKGROUND: Due to the sustained increases in life expectancy over the past half century, the elderly today will receive supports from their children for a longer period than ever before. Therefore, understanding the spillover effects of children's socioeconomic status on parents' health becomes increasingly important for both scholars and policy makers.

METHODS: The Ordinary Least Squares regression is applied to the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study 2011, a national representative dataset including approximately 10 000 households and 17 600 middle-aged and elderly respondents. The Sobel test is used to examine the mediation role of social integration.

RESULTS: The elderly who have a cadre child reported better health (coefficient=0.1347; 95% CI 0.067 to 0.202), had fewer activities of daily living (ADLs) limitations (coefficient=-0.1289; 95% CI -0.216 to -0.042) and were more socially integrated (coefficient=0.2321; 95% CI 0.103 to 0.361). Such effects are mainly driven by the parents of higher-ranking cadres. For the parents of higher ranking cadres, the Sobel test suggests that 12.6% of the total effects on self-reported health and 21.9% of the total effects on ADL limitations are mediated by the increase in parents' social integration.

CONCLUSION: The findings suggest positive spillover effects of children's political status on parents' health. The benefits of having a cadre child are at least equivalent to the rural-urban gap in health and even stronger for the parents of higher ranking cadres. One potential explanation for such spillover effects is that a child's political status can improve parents' community involvement and social interactions.