The Health Effect of the Number of Children on Chinese Elders: An Analysis Based on Hukou Category.

ABSTRACT: Based on the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS 2018), from the perspective of urban-rural disparity, this paper investigates how fertility affects Chinese elders' health. We exploit the enactment of the one-child policy in 1979 to construct instrumental variables capturing the health effect of having only one child rather than multiple children. The empirical results show that the health condition of rural elders having only one child is worse than elders having multiple children, while the negative health effect of lower fertility becomes statistically insignificant for urban elderly parents. After considering the selection on both levels and gains, the results are still robust in marginal treatment effect (MTE) estimation. We investigate the potential mechanism

SUBMITTER: Long C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8634947 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature