The influence of upward intergenerational support on family economic resilience of rural older adults: evidence from the ABC-X Family Stress and Adaptation Model

Background Guided by the ABC-X Family Stress and Adaptation Model, this study examined the association between upward intergenerational support and household economic resilience among rural older adults in China, together with the mediating role of health status and the moderating roles of two cognitive appraisal variables: filial piety belief and subjective life evaluation. Methods We analyzed nationally representative panel data from the 2016–2020 China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS). The analytic sample comprised 6,734 person-wave observations from 4,533 rural adults aged 60 years and older. Household economic resilience was measured with the Cissé–Barrett conditional-moments estimator based on per capita daily consumption expenditure, and three dimensions of upward intergenerational support (financial, caregiving, and emotional) were combined into a composite index using entropy weighting. Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) were used to estimate average and conditional average treatment effects; the number of children served as an instrumental variable to address endogeneity; and a two-stage moderated mediation model tested the mediating and moderating mechanisms. Results Upward intergenerational support was significantly and positively associated with household economic resilience (posterior mean ATE = 0.093, 95% credible interval 0.009–0.179), following a gradient of financial support > caregiving support > emotional support. Instrumental-variable estimation confirmed a positive association (β = 0.094, p < 0.001). Health status partially mediated this relationship (indirect effect = 0.0014, p < 0.001). Filial piety belief positively moderated the support–health pathway, whereas subjective life evaluation did not significantly moderate the health–resilience pathway. Heterogeneity analysis showed that the positive association was concentrated among low-income and landholding households and attenuated toward the top of the income distribution, with negligible age heterogeneity. Discussion Internal family resources provide a resilience channel that complements external inputs. Strengthening intergenerational support—particularly for low-income and landholding rural households—and incorporating filial piety culture into community interventions can inform the design of differentiated rural old-age security policies amid population aging.