The effect of the New Rural Social Pension Insurance program on the retirement and labor supply decision in China

In 2009, the Chinese government introduced the New Rural Social Pension Insurance (NRSPI) program; it was expanded nationwide in 2012. This paper investigates the effects of the NRSPI program on retirement and old-age labor supply patterns in China, using two-wave nationwide survey data. After controlling for endogenous bias by using instrumental variables, we found that receiving pension benefits from the NRSPI program can substantially increase the likelihood of retirement and reduce the number of working hours among women, even though the amount of NRSPI pension benefits is far below the minimum cost of living. Furthermore, we broke down the labor supply into agricultural and nonagricultural labor supply, and found that most of the decrease in labor supply stems from the agricultural labor supply. We also found that people from different income brackets, contribution levels, education backgrounds, age groups, and household registration statuses behave differently in their retirement and in terms of labor supply decision-making.