We consider the nexus of intra-familial transfers, the sex composition of the sibship, and parental retirement behavior in South Korea. To investigate this, we employ the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging and a research design that relies on plausibly exogenous variation in the sex composition of the sibship. We provide evidence that it costs more to raise sons than daughters in South Korea, particularly for older cohorts. Thus, in the absence of sufficient transfers from adult sons to parents, parents will fund their earlier investments in their sons by increasing their labor supply. Consistent with this, we show that parents with more adult sons are more likely to delay their retirement. In particular, a father with all sons has a probability of being retired that is 5.5–6.0 percentage points lower than a comparable father with all daughters. Fathers also work 16.8 percent more hours per week when their sibship consists of all sons. These effects are the most pronounced for poorer households and for older cohorts.

我们考虑了韩国的家庭内部转移、同胞的性别构成和父母退休行为之间的关系。为了对此进行调查，我们采用了韩国老龄化纵向研究和一项研究设计，该研究设计依赖于同胞性别构成中看似合理的外源变异。我们提供的证据表明，在韩国抚养儿子比抚养女儿的成本更高，尤其是对于年龄较大的群体。因此，在成年儿子没有足够的转移给父母的情况下，父母将通过增加他们的劳动力供应来资助他们早期对儿子的投资。与此一致，我们表明，拥有更多成年儿子的父母更有可能推迟退休。特别是，所有儿子的父亲退休的可能性比所有女儿的父亲低 5.5-6.0 个百分点。当他们的兄弟姐妹由所有儿子组成时，父亲每周的工作时间也会增加 16.8%。这些影响对贫困家庭和老年群体最为明显。