Public Policy and Extended Families : Evidence from Pensions in South Africa

Bertrand, Marianne ; Mullainathan, Sendhil ; Miller, Douglas

Washington, DC:World Bank

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    AGE CATEGORIES;    AGE GROUP;    AGE GROUPS;    ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES;   

DOI  :  10.1093/wber/lhg014
RP-ID  :  77400

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

How are resources allocated withinextended families in developing economies? This question isinvestigated using a unique social experiment: the SouthAfrican pension program. Under that program the elderlyreceive a cash transfer equal to roughly twice the percapita income of Africans in South Africa. The studyexamines how this transfer affects the labor supply ofprime-age individuals living with these elderly in extendedfamilies. It finds a sharp drop in the working hours ofprime-age individuals in these households when women turn 60years old or men turn 65, the ages at which they becomeeligible for pensions. It also finds that the drop in laborsupply is much larger when the pensioner is a woman,suggesting an imperfect pooling of resources. The allocationof resources among prime-age individuals depends strongly ontheir absolute age and gender as well as on their relativeage. The oldest son in the household reduces his workinghours more than any other prime-age household member.