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

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.

The Effect of Boarding on Obesity Among Middle School Students: Evidence From China.

PURPOSE: This paper examines the effect of boarding on obesity among middle school students at boarding schools. DESIGN: Quantitative, cross-sectional study. SETTING: Data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) were analyzed. The CEPS samples middle school students from 7th grade to 9th grade in China. SUBJECTS: The final sample included 3,892 observations of boarding school students. MEASURES: Measures included body mass index (BMI) that determined obesity, boarding status, demographic information, and instruments for boarding status. ANALYSIS: The instrumental variables approach based on the 2 stage least squares (2SLS) methodology was utilized. The endogenous models and the extended probit models were also applied to the data to confirm the robustness of the results. RESULTS: Boarding has a significant negative effect on obesity for middle school boys but a smaller negative effect on obesity for middle school girls. Boarding was estimated to reduce obesity by roughly 14% (p < 0.01) among middle school boys and 6% (p > 0.1) among middle school girls. The overall estimated effect based on the pooled sample was about 10% (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: School or government policies that encourage boarding at school can reduce obesity among middle school students, at least for middle school boys. Boarding at school can be a positive factor in preventing and controlling obesity among middle school students.