Self-interested altruism? Understanding preferences for social welfare inclusion in aging China

How does population aging shape individuals’ welfare attitudes toward migrants? As fiscal pressures mount in aging societies, people reassess the costs and benefits of incorporating migrants into social welfare systems. We argue that in the context of population aging, individuals’ support for migrant inclusion increases when migrants are perceived as net contributors rather than dependents. Using original survey data from China, one of the most rapidly aging countries, we examine how individual age and regional aging jointly structure welfare attitudes toward migrants. We find that older people are more supportive than younger people of including migrants in contributory social insurance, but not in general tax-financed social services. However, this age-based gap narrows in older regions, where rising elderly dependency leads younger people to express support for migrant inclusion. By highlighting the interaction between individual life-cycle position and regional demographic structure, these findings demonstrate that demographic change reshapes self-interested welfare preferences. Our study extends research on migrant inclusion in social welfare to developing-country contexts that remain underexamined.