Abstract:

In recent years, driven by concerns over ultra-low fertility rates and rapid population aging, there has been a significant increase in attention from the government, society, and academia towards the "elderly and children" issue. The government has also strengthened policy support for this demographic. While academic circles generally acknowledge that the "sandwich generation" faces dual pressures of supporting aging parents and raising children, there remains insufficient exploration into the actual extent of these overlapping burdens.Drawing on the lifecycle deficit theory framework, this study analyzes data from both national and household levels, revealing that public transfers targeting the elderly and children demonstrate relatively few systemic issues and constitute a relatively small proportion of total expenditures, without imposing significant pressure on national economic development.Intergenerational transfers within families are neither unidirectional nor confined to dyadic relationships between two generations. These transfers demonstrate dynamic reciprocity, as families strategically adjust resource allocation between grandparents and parents to alleviate household pressures. Analysis focusing on caregiving obligations reveals that while the state provides multiple channels for elderly and child care support, its overall engagement remains limited with insufficient responsibility assumption. Households predominantly shoulder primary caregiving responsibilities for both elderly and children. However, such obligations are not exclusively borne by the parental generation. Cross-generational participation emerges as a distinctive feature, with grandparents and grandchildren actively involved in fulfilling family care duties. Notably, eldercare and childrearing responsibilities within households do not generally coincide temporally, creating distinct care cycles across different life stages.The dual pressures of ultra-low fertility rates and population aging with declining youth cohorts paradoxically generate an eldercare deficit alongside a childcare surplus. This demographic reality necessitates rectifying media's skewed perceptions of intergenerational care dynamics. Policy recommendations propose three-pronged interventions: prioritizing care infrastructure for the high-aged and disabled/semi-disabled elderly population, moderating excessive educational investments in childhood development, and viewing intergenerational mutual aid and support in the care of the elderly and children within families through the lens of multi-generational integration.

Key words: the elderly and children, transfer payments, duty of care, life cycle deficit