In this paper, we provide micro-econometric evidence on the determinants of life insurance demand in
China, the largest emerging market in the world. We employ the China Household Income Project (CHIP)
dataset for the year 2002 in the analysis. The timing is ideal, because of the nature of the less well devel-
oped capital markets and social security systems in China in 2002, which sets a suitable stage to study the
insurance demand behavior of emerging markets. The results indicate that both the human capital protec-
tion motive and the asset allocation motive are important in explaining the purchase of life insurance in
China. In addition, we present three empirical regularities: (1) the positive correlation between the returns
to human capital and the returns to market portfolio decrease the demand for life insurance; (2) both the
current wealth and future income of a household exert curvilinear impacts on life insurance demand; (3)
the breadth of a households social connections has substantial impacts on life insurance demand.