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The State of Mental Health Among the Elderly Chinese

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  • Yi Chen
  • Hanming Fang

Abstract

China introduced its stringent family planning policies from the early 1970s, known as the "Later, Longer, Fewer" policies, and followed it with the One-Child Policy from 1979. The number of children born to Chinese parents significantly decreased from 5.7 in late 1960s to 2.5 in 1988. In Chen and Fang (2019), we show that family planning policies have drastically different effects on elderly parents' physical and mental well-beings. Whereas parents more exposed to the family planning policies consume more and enjoy slightly better physical health status, they report more severe depression symptoms. In this paper, we present a more complete picture of the difference in mental health among residents in rural and urban areas, between males and females, between different education groups, between those with one child and those with more than one children, and between widowed and non-widowed. We highlight the role of family support (from children and spouse) for the mental health status among the elderly Chinese.

Suggested Citation

  • Yi Chen & Hanming Fang, 2020. "The State of Mental Health Among the Elderly Chinese," NBER Working Papers 26690, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26690
    Note: DEV EH PE
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    Cited by:

    1. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo & Erin Grela & Madeline McKelway & Frank Schilbach & Garima Sharma & Girija Vaidyanathan, 2023. "Depression and Loneliness among the Elderly in Low- and Middle-Income Countries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 37(2), pages 179-202, Spring.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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