How do children’s cohabitation and family asset reserves impact rural individuals’ participation in commercial pension insurance?

This paper utilizes the Chinese Family Panel Studies (CFPS) database and employs the Probit model to examine the influence of cohabitation with children and household asset reserves on the engagement of rural people in commercial pension insurance. The study reveals that cohabiting with children markedly restricts rural residents' engagement in commercial pension insurance. However, household asset reserves substantially enhance the probability of such participation. The significance and its direction remain unchanged following robustness and endogeneity assessments. The moderating effect indicates that the interaction term between household asset reserves and child cohabitation substantially increases commercial pension insurance participation, suggesting that household asset reserves mitigate the disincentive effect of child cohabitation. Heterogeneity analysis revealed that children's cohabitation had a negative influence on participation in commercial pension insurance among residents with low educational attainment and poor health. In contrast, family asset reserves had a positive impact on participation in commercial pension insurance for residents with high educational attainment and good health. Consequently, we propose pertinent recommendations to enhance awareness of aging and transform perceptions of old age, augment farmers' incomes and reduce insurance costs, assist prospective users, and refine insurance products.