The Influence of A Financial Professional Background on Family Pension Insurance Decisions

Abstract

Based on data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) spanning 2015 to 2019, this study empirically examines the impact of a household member’s financial professional background on the family’s decision to purchase commercial endowment insurance. A key innovation of this research lies in its use of multi-period micro-survey data to investigate how individual occupational backgrounds influence retirement-related decision-making,while employing a two-way fixed effects model to mitigate endogeneity issues. The empirical findings indicate that the presence of a financial professional within a household significantly increases the likelihood of the family obtaining commercial endowment insurance. This conclusion remains robust after undergoing a series of robustness tests and model specification checks. Furthermore, this study focuses on analyzing the heterogeneous characteristics of the impact exerted by financial professional backgrounds on retirement decisions, which, to some extent, expands the existing literature in the field of health economics. Results from the heterogeneity analysis reveal that the positive effect of having a financial professional is more pronounced in urban households, high-income households, and households where the head of the household has a higher level of education. This research provides a new perspective for understanding household decision-making regarding endowment insurance and offers empirical evidence to support the improvement of China’s multi-level elderly care security system.