If parents receive financial support in retirement from their children, having more children with higher earning power may expedite their retirement. On the other hand, retirement may be delayed if parents are burdened with educational expenses for children. We empirically investigate how the quantity and the education of children influence their parents’ retirement decisions. Due to the endogeneity of childrearing in the retirement decision, we employ the instrumental variable method with twin births and child deaths as instruments. We find that parents retire earlier when they have more children and better educated children and they receive a significant amount of transfers from children.

如果父母在子女退休后获得经济支持，那么拥有更多具有较高收入能力的子女可能会加速他们的退休。另一方面，如果父母负担着子女的教育费用，退休可能会延迟。我们根据经验调查子女的数量和教育程度如何影响父母的退休决定。由于退休决策中育儿的内生性，我们采用双胞胎生育和儿童死亡的工具变量方法作为工具。我们发现，当父母有更多的孩子和受过良好教育的孩子时，他们就会提前退休，并且他们从孩子那里获得了大量的转学收入。