Family identity as cultural capital: intergenerational solidarity and public health compliance in pandemic governance.

INTRODUCTION: Sustainable health governance requires moving beyond crisis response to strategic design that integrates cultural resources. However, the role of family-based cultural capital in shaping public health compliance remains underexplored. METHODS: We develop a dynamic game-theoretic model of intra-household compliance and a two-period macro-level policy game. The model incorporates intergenerational solidarity theory and conceptualizes Confucian family identity as a form of cultural capital. RESULTS: Our model shows that family cultural capital can resolve the household prisoner's dilemma, transforming non-compliance into a cooperative equilibrium when normative and functional solidarity are strong. At the macro level, the government's optimal investment in family cultural capital depends on a threshold condition: Type-I (high compliance, sustainable) equilibrium occurs when short-term economic pressure (D) is below a culturally-determined threshold; Type-II (low compliance, fragile) equilibrium occurs when D exceeds this threshold. DISCUSSION: We derive four policy design principles: strengthening normative solidarity through cultural alignment, securing fiscal space to support family caregivers, investing in intergenerational solidarity as social infrastructure, and managing global interdependence to avoid the "high-return trap." Our framework offers a culturally intelligent roadmap for designing resilient, equitable health governance systems.