The Impact of Parental Pension Insurance on The Children's Marriage Market

: In recent years, China's marriage rate and fertility rate have continued to decline, and the divorce rate has been rising, accompanied by the increasing aging problem in China. This paper empirically studies the impact of parental pension insurance on children's marriage market, and classifies the views of young respondents on the impact of parental social insurance on children's marriage market from their perspective and the perspective of the next generation. The conclusion shows that the positive effect of parental pension insurance on the choice of children's marriage market is more significant, but there are still some differences between age, gender, urban and rural areas and family types, which provides a scientific basis for improving China's marriage rate and fertility rate.


Introduction
China has traditionally valued the importance of marital happiness and family harmony.However, in recent years, the marriage rate in the country has declined significantly, leading to a greater impact on China's aging process.As it shown in Table 1, based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the number of marriage registrations in China has decreased from 13.4693 million in 2013 to 7.643 million in 2021, marking a nearly 50% decrease over the past decade.The widespread concern from various sectors arises due to the potential impact of this trend on China's birth rate, which could further intensify the problem of aging.

Table 1. Number of marriages in mainland China in the past decade
Source: http://www.stats.gov.cn[1] There are a number of reasons for the decline in first marriages, including increased female awareness, better education and increased stress in life.For example, one study found that for every 1% increase in house prices, the rate of first marriage fell by 0.31%.[2] In addition, it is widely believed that parental stress also has an impact on marriage rates, and this includes not only the stress of raising the next generation, but also the stress of caring for the generation of parents.However, empirical evidence shows that pension insurance can replace the financial support and medical supply of children to a certain extent, which can improve the medical participation rate and reduce their medical worries.When the individual's security ability is low, the new rural insurance and new rural cooperative medical care will play a more obvious role in the replacement of their children's pension.[3] Old-age insurance in China is classified into four types: urban employee old-age insurance (for stateowned, private, and foreign enterprise employees), government employee old-age insurance (for civil servants and public institution employees), urban and rural resident old-age insurance, and commercial old-age insurance.The importance of pension insurance is growing among individuals, especially as China's population ages.China's New Rural Pension Scheme is replacing the traditional family pension model with a "social pension" model, according to research.Pension schemes lead to increased household income and food expenditure, reduced agricultural Labour, improved health and lower mortality.[4] Over the past decade, the number of people participating in endowment insurance in China has increased annually, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.As of the end of 2022,503.49million people participated in the basic endowment insurance for urban employees, which is up by 22.75 million from the previous year.Additionally, 549.52 million people participated in the basic endowment insurance for urban and rural residents, which is up by1.55 million.[1] These figures indicate a gradual increase in the proportion of elderly individuals in China, as well as a growing emphasis on the concept of 'social pension'.

Literature review
At present, a large number of academic studies have been carried out in the field of pension insurance.It is understood that the endowment insurance is considered as a social welfare measure that can improve the wellbeing of the elderly.
However, since pension insurance still requires payment, it is closely linked to the defensive savings of the insured and their families.Research shows that in high-income plans, the increase in insurance-induced consumption is caused by a lower incentive to save defensively.[5] Despite this, there are relatively few studies on the impact of parental pension insurance on the marriage market, with most studies focusing on its impact on physical health, income level, life satisfaction, labor supply time, and female fertility.For example, Some economists reckon that the public pension model has the effect of lowering the fertility rate, which indirectly leads to a decline in the population and a decline in the marriage rate of the next generation.[6] Another study have found that basic old-age insurance for urban and rural residents can improve the health of the elderly in rural areas by increasing medical spending, increasing leisure activities and maintaining a balanced diet.[7] This result may make children more willing to choose elderly people with pension insurance as marriage partners, thereby reducing the family's medical costs.Pensions can also reduce the income gap among rural elderly, thereby reducing welfare inequality, which helps to improve household income and economic resilience, [8] while also encouraging children to pay more attention to their parents' pension status.Moreover, although different pension systems have different effects on fertility, the cost of dependency remains a constraint on marriage and fertility.[9] Therefore this study aims to fill the research gap on the relationship between parents' participation in pension insurance and children's choice of spouse, and provide scientific basis for promoting marriage and fertility in China through questionnaire survey and Pearson correlation analysis.

3.Empirical analysis 3.1 Data source and statistical expression of variables
The data of this study are from random questionnaires.513 questionnaires were collected and the questionnaire mainly includes two parts: the basic characteristics of the respondents (gender, age, whether there is old-age insurance, the type of old-age insurance, whether there are children, the type of household registration, whether it is a single-parent family, etc.) and the importance of old-age insurance in romantic relationships, which provides data support for this article.
Table 2 shows the statistical analysis of variable interpretation and description of the results of 513 statistical questionnaires, including variable name, variable interpretation, mean value and standard deviation The gender distribution of the respondents was relatively uniform, with 42.11% men and 55.95% women.The respondents had an average age of37.13,and81.2%had pension insurance while 18.71% did not.This indicates that most respondents were under40 and had a good understanding of pension insurance.Of those surveyed,86.1% had children and 13.9% did not.The respondents' household registration types were also relatively evenly distributed, with44.59%having rural household registration and 54.05% having urban household registration.Among the respondents, 12.16% were from single-parent families, while 87.84% were from non-single parent families.Of the single-parent family respondents, 54.88% had a father/mother with pension insurance.In terms of the parents' pension insurance status, 61.54% of the respondents' parents had pension insurance, while 18.46% did not.The survey on types of pension insurance found that the father's pension insurance type was distributed fairly evenly among the four types, with urban employee pension insurance at 26.67%, institutional pension insurance at 16%, urban and rural resident pension insurance at29.33%, and commercial insurance at 22.6%.The mother's pension insurance type was also distributed fairly evenly among the four types, with urban employee pension insurance at 30%, institutional pension insurance at 27.5%, urban and rural resident pension insurance at 27.5%, and commercial insurance at 5%.

Analysis of empirical results
First of all, this study uses Pearson correlation analysis to study the relationship between quantitative data, whether there is a relationship, the closeness of the relationship, and so on.Then it analyzes the relationship between each Y and each x, and whether there is a significant relationship between Y and X; The correlation was positive or negative.The closeness of the relationship can also be explained by the size of the correlation coefficient.Finally, the analysis is summarized.

Impact analysis on whether to pay attention to whether the target's parents have old-age insurance
Table 3. Pearson result of factors on whether to pay attention to whether the target's parents have pension insurance As shown in Table 3, the correlation coefficient between respondents' concern about their prospective partners' parents having pension insurance and their gender is -0.040, with a p-value of 0.372>0.05,indicating no correlation between the two.However, there is a significant negative correlation (-0.861) between this factor and respondents' age at the0.01 level, meaning that as age increases, respondents place more importance on whether their prospective partners' parents have pension insurance.The correlation coefficient between this factor and urban-rural household registration type is 0.304, indicating a significantly positive correlation at the 0.01 level, suggesting that urban household registration respondents are more concerned about this factor than rural household registration respondents.Similarly, the correlation coefficient between this factor and whether respondents come from single-parent families is 0.296, indicating a significantly positive correlation at the 0.01 level, meaning that non-single-parent family respondents place more importance on whether their prospective partners' parents have pension insurance than single-parent family respondents.Respondents with pension insurance have a significantly negative correlation (-0.551) with this factor at the0.01 level, indicating that they place more importance on whether their prospective partners' parents have pension insurance than those without pension insurance.Finally, the correlation coefficient between this factor and whether respondents' parents have pension insurance is 0.374, indicating a significantly positive correlation at the 0.01 level, meaning that respondents whose parents have pension insurance place more importance on whether their prospective partners' parents have pension insurance than those whose parents do not have pension insurance.As shown in Table 4, the correlation coefficient between respondents' concern about whether their prospective partners' parents have pension insurance when their children are of marriageable age and their gender is -0.104, indicating a significantly negative correlation at the 0.05 level, suggesting that women place more importance on this factor than men.The correlation coefficient between this factor and respondents' age is -0.396, indicating a significant negative correlation at the0.01 level, meaning that as age increases, respondents place less importance on whether their children's prospective partners' parents have pension insurance.The correlation coefficient between this factor and urban-rural household registration type is 0.923, indicating a significantly positive correlation at the0.01 level, meaning that urban household registration respondents place more importance on this factor than rural household registration respondents.There is a significant positive correlation between this factor and whether respondents come from single-parent families, indicating that single-parent families place more importance on whether their children's prospective partners' parents have pension insurance than non-singleparent families.Respondents without pension insurance have a significantly negative correlation (-0.360) with this factor at the 0.01 level, indicating that they place more importance on whether their children's prospective partners' parents have pension insurance than those with pension insurance.Finally, the correlation coefficient between this factor and whether respondents' parents have pension insurance is 0.753, indicating a significantly positive correlation at the 0.01 level, meaning that respondents whose parents do not have pension insurance place more importance on this factor than those whose parents have pension insurance.

Conclusions and discussion
The study found that children whose parents had pension insurance were more popular in the dating market.As far as age is concerned, with age, the importance of pension insurance for themselves and the parents of the next generation of marriage partner has gradually increased.As far as gender is concerned, although as far as the respondents themselves are concerned, whether they attach importance to the pension insurance of the parents of marriage partner does not show significant differences between different genders, women pay more attention to whether the parents of marriage partner have pension insurance when choosing marriage partner for the next generation.As far as family types are concerned, on the issue of "whether to pay more attention to whether the parents of marriage partner have old-age insurance", the study found that single parent family respondents pay more attention to whether the parents of marriage partner have old-age insurance than non-single parent family respondents, The study found that respondents whose parents had pension insurance paid more attention to whether their parents had pension insurance than those whose parents had no pension insurance.Generally speaking, this research not only fills the gap in existing studies on the influence of parents' participation in pension insurance on their children's marriage market selection but also provides scientific evidence to promote the marriage rate and fertility rate in China.

Table 2 .
Statistical analysis of variable interpretation and description (n=513)

Table 4 .
Pearson estimates of "whether respondents pay attention to whether the parents of their children have pension insurance if they have children