1.Title:China's family planning reforms and women's mental health and subjective wellbeing

2.Speaker:郝壯

3.Abstract:

In response to the declining birth rate, the Chinese government has begun a series of relaxations in its family planning policies. Existing literature has confirmed that relaxing fertility policies will increase fertility. As additional childbirth may affect women’s family production and labor market productivity, these reforms may affect women's mental health and subjective well-being. In this paper, we use the data from 2010 to 2020 China Family Panel Survey (CFPS) and adopt a difference-in-differences method to examine how China's family planning reforms affect women's mental health and subjective well-being. We find that the relaxation of the one-child policy in 2013 led to a decrease in women’s life satisfaction and deterioration in mental health measured by the Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). These effects are robust to different model specifications. Women with lower income and educational levels are disproportionately affected by the policies. In addition, we find that the statistical discrimination in the labor market may be the main driving factor, but there is no evidence suggesting that household production time is affected by the policy reforms. We recommend supporting measures to improve women's mental health and subjective well-being in the short run.

4.About Speaker：

郝壯，北京航空航天大學經濟管理學院助理教授，于2018年在華盛頓州立大學取得經濟學博士學位，研究方向為健康經濟學、勞動經濟學和教育經濟學。近年來多篇研究成果發表于American Journal of Health Economics, Economic Inquiry, Health Economics等權威期刊。主持國家自然科學基金青年科學基金項目和北京航空航天大學人文社科青年骨幹項目；參與國家自然科學基金重點項目、國家社科基金一般項目。研究成果得到了包括紐約時報（New York Times）和美國國家公共廣播電台（National Public Radio）在内的多家權威媒體的關注和報道。

5.時間：2023.12.14 周四中午12:30-13:45

6.地點：學術會堂（南樓）608