平衡负担：加纳农村代际经济支持中的共同责任

摘要

Old-age poverty is a growing concern in Sub-Saharan Africa, where pension coverage remains low, particularly in rural areas. Traditionally, older adults have relied on financial support from their children, but demographic and social changes are weakening this intergenerational contract. This study examines parents’ savings decisions within the framework of the intergenerational contract, focusing on the interaction between parental savings and child transfers in financing old-age security. Using a lab-in-the-field experiment with cocoa-farming households in rural Ghana, we analyze parental savings decisions, expectations of child support, and children’s transfer behavior. Our findings show that parents save substantial amounts regardless of expected or actual child transfers, and children do not adjust their contributions based on parental savings. We find no evidence of strategic under-saving or crowding out of private savings by expected future child transfers. The experimental results are consistent with elicited social norms that prescribe both parental savings and children’s financial support, pointing to an intergenerational contract based on shared responsibility rather than strategic substitution in rural Ghana. These findings suggest that in contexts with weak formal pensions, informal intergenerational contracts and private savings can coexist as complementary pillars of old-age security.