Bethmann Dirk, Cho Jae Il
Department of Economics, Korea University, South Korea.
Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University, 005 Calhoun Hall, Nashville, TN, 37240, United States.
SSM Popul Health. 2023 Dec 10;25:101579. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101579. eCollection 2024 Mar.
In June 2002, South Korea cohosted the 17th FIFA World Cup. Unexpected wins carried the Korean National Football Team to the semi-finals and sparked an unprecedented euphoria among Koreans. Die-hard fans and occasional football viewers, young and old, women and men flocked the streets side by side, cheered for their team, and partied through the nights. In the subsequent spring of 2003, the country experienced a temporary and significant increase in its fertility rate. Using a difference-in-differences design, we exploit the quasi-experimental nature of this episode to investigate the Beckerian trade-off between the quantity and quality of children born to parents in South Korea. Our results support the notion of an adverse effect on child quality. Students born approximately ten months after the World Cup tend to perform significantly worse in school. Moreover, our results uncover a hitherto overlooked aspect: the same students exhibit significantly higher degrees of mental wellbeing.
2002年6月，韩国共同举办了第17届国际足联世界杯。出人意料的胜利将韩国国家足球队送入了半决赛，并在韩国民众中引发了前所未有的狂热。铁杆球迷和偶尔看球的观众，无论老少、男女，并肩涌上街头，为球队欢呼，彻夜庆祝。在随后的2003年春天，该国的生育率出现了暂时且显著的上升。我们采用双重差分设计，利用这一事件的准实验性质，来研究韩国父母在孩子数量和质量之间的贝克尔式权衡。我们的研究结果支持了对孩子质量产生不利影响的观点。在世界杯后大约十个月出生的学生在学校的表现往往明显更差。此外，我们的研究结果还揭示了一个迄今为止被忽视的方面：同样这些学生表现出显著更高程度的心理健康。
