Abstract
The aim of this work is to investigate the different implications in terms of the elderly and child care on household carbon emissions in China. We estimate the effect of family structure on household carbon emissions in the 2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), by means of the STIRPAT model. The results indicate that significant differences exist between the effect of the elderly and child care on each household's carbon emissions. Moreover, there is a negative effect between the elderly and household carbon emissions with an elasticity coefficient of -0.029, and a positive effect between children and household carbon emissions with an elasticity coefficient of 0.008. Interestingly, the elderly and children have an interactive effect on carbon emissions except for housing carbon emissions. To be specific, the elderly and child care have a mutual inhibition effect on the health carbon emissions of household, whereas they have a mutually reinforcing effect on other carbon emissions. Low carbon emissions paths in household should be urgently explored, and deliberate policy action is required to achieve carbon emissions reduction.