Family relationships, pro-social preferences, and household charitable donations: an empirical study of altruistic resource allocation in Chinese families

Family relationships have a significant impact on family economic activities, yet few scholars have examined their influence on family charitable giving. This study integrates relevant theories of family function, family economics, and behavioral economics to construct an analytical framework for family altruistic resource allocation, aiming to elucidate the process mechanism of "family relations - prosocial preferences - family charitable donations". Based on three periods of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2018, 2020, and 2022, this study systematically examines the impact and mechanism of family relationships on family charitable donations. The results show that (1) Family relationships promote family charitable donations. The better the family relationship, the greater the possibility of family participation in charitable donations, and the higher the level of donations. (2) Among different types of family relationships, the closeness of the nuclear-kin family relationship has a particularly prominent positive impact on family charitable donation behavior and donation levels. (3) Family members' prosocial preferences may be a potential mediating mechanism between family relationships and family charitable donations. Specifically, both nuclear family relationships and nuclear-kin families may promote family participation in charitable donations by enhancing family members' sense of happiness, interpersonal relationships, and social trust. Family members' life satisfaction may also mediate between nuclear family relationships and family charitable donations; however, this mechanism did not show a significant mediating effect between nuclear kin and family charitable donations. This study not only enriches the existing literature on family altruistic resource allocation decisions and behaviors, but also has certain reference value for activating public charitable donation behavior.