Fu Wenxiao, Zhao Wenlong, Deng Fei
School of Humanities and Social Science, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
School of Education, Xi'an International Studies University, Xi'an 710128, China.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2023 Mar 14;13(3):256. doi: 10.3390/bs13030256.
In 2013, the Chinese government implemented a two-child policy to increase the country's fertility rate. However, the persistently low rates necessitated other measures to boost fertility. This study empirically investigated the association between intergenerational support and second-child fertility intention in the Chinese sandwich generation and demonstrated the mediating role of parental burnout and burnout in caring for grandparents. Survey data collected at Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3 included 2939 participants from different regions of China. Before analyzing the data, coarsened exact matching and propensity score matching was conducted to reduce sampling bias. Regression analysis results indicated that intergenerational support has a significant total positive effect on second-child fertility intention. Furthermore, mediation path analysis revealed that parental burnout and burnout in caring for grandparents play significant but opposite directional mediating roles in the association between intergenerational support and second-child fertility intention. Sensitivity analysis using different calipers yielded similar results. These results indicated that second-child fertility intention can be increased among the Chinese sandwich generation with intergenerational support, by mitigating parental burnout. However, intergenerational support did not alleviate burnout in caring for grandparents in the sandwich generation; therefore, formal older adult care policies are required to help the sandwich generation experience lower burnout, while receiving intergenerational support.
2013年，中国政府实施了二孩政策以提高国家的生育率。然而，持续的低生育率使得有必要采取其他措施来促进生育。本研究实证调查了中国夹心一代中代际支持与二孩生育意愿之间的关联，并证明了父母倦怠和照顾祖父母时的倦怠所起的中介作用。在第1、第2和第3时间点收集的调查数据包括来自中国不同地区的2939名参与者。在分析数据之前，进行了粗化精确匹配和倾向得分匹配以减少抽样偏差。回归分析结果表明，代际支持对二孩生育意愿具有显著的总体正向影响。此外，中介路径分析显示，父母倦怠和照顾祖父母时的倦怠在代际支持与二孩生育意愿之间的关联中发挥了显著但方向相反的中介作用。使用不同卡尺进行的敏感性分析得出了类似的结果。这些结果表明，通过减轻父母倦怠，在代际支持下，中国夹心一代的二孩生育意愿可以提高。然而，代际支持并未减轻夹心一代照顾祖父母时的倦怠；因此，需要正式的老年人护理政策来帮助夹心一代在获得代际支持的同时，经历更低的倦怠。
