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Abstract
Few studies have evaluated the potential impact of macro-level gender inequality on child development. Using data from the 2010 China Family Panel Studies, this study investigates whether and how county-level gender inequality affects children’s health outcomes in China. Results show that greater exposure to county-level sexism is associated with worse mental and physical health among both boys and girls in China. On the one hand, the greater the county-level gender inequality, the worse the depression symptoms and the lower the standardized height among children in this region. In addition, exposure to county-level gender inequality leads to a greater negative effect on mental health among girls than among boys. On the other hand, county-level gender inequality also imposes a greater negative effect on depression symptoms among children from families with a lower socioeconomic status along with an increasing harm on height as children grow older. Further analysis unveils the psychosocial mechanisms and the mechanism of access to family resources underlying the health effects of such exposure to macro-level gender inequality.
Acknowledgement
The authors would also like to thank the Institute of Social Science Survey at Peking University for providing access to CFPS data.
Notes
1 In fact, it is not self-evident or generally acknowledged to select a certain level to measure macro-level gender inequality. Measurement of macro-level gender inequality is confined to data accessibility in most studies, which mainly focus on state/provincial or national gender inequality. Knowledge of China’s administrative hierarchy and prevalence of patriarchy prompt us to choose county-level gender inequality in China’s data because more heterogeneous information is embedded in county-level regions. County itself could suggest whether its population is predominantly rural, and it cast a big difference over the prevalence of patriarchy there, which can hardly be captured by provincial or city indicators.
2 Two indicators, rather than a single indicator, are adopted to measure macro-level gender inequality since two could reflect the regional gender inequality in a more comprehensive way. In fact, if we use the gap between women and men in education attainment and sex ratio under 5 years as dependent variables, we get results consistent with findings in this study. We matched this variable into the CFPS2010 datasets in the CFPS Project Center (Peking University) and analyzed the effect of this index on children’s physical and mental health.
3 Of note, per-capita GDP does not significantly affect child mental health or standardized height. If average schooling years (county-level) is excluded in our models, per-capita GDP positively affects child height but still remains insignificant in terms of child depression. If macro-level gender inequality is excluded in models, per-capita GDP (county-level) remains insignificant in affecting child development. However, if our models exclude county-level per-capita GDP but control average schooling years, macro-level gender inequality is still found to have significant negative effect on child development. To briefly sum up, percapita GDP(county-level) does not significantly affect child depression but does affect their physical development. However, with or without per-capita GDP (county-level) controlled for, the influence of macro-level gender inequality persists.
4 If we perform regression analysis in the subsamples of boys and girls independently, such an effect is only found among girls.
5 We have also run Structural Equation Modeling to test the mediation effects, and the results remain consistent with results of regression analysis and support our hypotheses.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Cheng Cheng
Cheng Cheng ([email protected]) is an associate professor of sociology at Southeast University in China. His current research focuses on social network and social capital, social stratification, and mobility. He is currently leading a project focusing on online medical crowdfunding in China.
Shen Yang
Shen Yang is a PhD student in sociology at Xi’an Jiaotong University and a lecturer in Xi’an Medical University in China. She is interested in medical inequality in contemporary China.
Chenyu Li
Chenyu Li is a graduate student in sociology at Southeast University in China. Her main research interests are social stratification and social network analysis.
Yuan Yao
Yuan Yao ([email protected]) is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Hohai University, China. Her expertise is demography, health inequality, and Chinese child development.