Offspring Education and Parents' Health Inequality in China: Evidence from Spillovers of Education Reform.

Youlu Zhang,Linyue Yu,Jiaoli Cai,Liqian Deng,Li Zhang,Fulian Li

doi:10.3390/ijerph19042006

Abstract

In the context of a rapidly aging population, improving the parents’ health outcomes, especially in parents with poorer health, is essential for narrowing elderly health inequality. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we took the university enrollment expansion policy as the instrumental variable and employed the two-stage least square (2SLS) and instrumental variable quantile regression (IVQR) approaches to explore the spillovers of offspring education on the elderly parents’ frailty index. The results show that one additional year of offspring educational attainment was associated with a 0.017 or 4.66% decline in the parents’ frailty index. These spillovers are stronger where parents are cohabiting with their children than when separating (more than 2 times higher). Moreover, there is substantial heterogeneity that is determined by the gender of parents. The spillover on mothers is greater than that on fathers. Further analysis of a cohort of parents with different frailty indexes reveals that the upward spillovers of offspring education on parents’ health are non-linear and non-averaged. The spillovers may diminish as parents own health improves. These spillovers suppress the “Matthew Effect”, which can lead to the further widening of health inequality.

Highlights

IntroductionHuman life expectancy continues to increase, and the birth rate continues to decline
Human life expectancy continues to increase, and the birth rate continues to decline.Many countries are facing the challenges associated with having an inverted pyramidshaped aging population, especially in developing countries such as China
The results of our research show that when children are able to receive a higher level of education, it leads to a decrease in the frailty index of the Chinese elderly

Summary

Introduction

Human life expectancy continues to increase, and the birth rate continues to decline. Many countries are facing the challenges associated with having an inverted pyramidshaped aging population, especially in developing countries such as China. The aging population is a serious situation in China. Getting Rich” is prominent, arousing concerns among the Chinese government. The aging population in China has led to a significant increase in the dependence on support of the elderly. Given the imperfection of China’s social pension system, the health problems that are experienced by the elderly population, especially in rural areas, create many challenges related to the sustainable development of public health undertakings in China [1,2]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion