School of Economics and Management, South China Normal University, Panyu District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, China.
College of Humanities and Arts, Heyuan Polytechnic, Yuancheng District, Heyuan City, Guangdong Province, China.
PLoS One. 2024 Jun 7;19(6):e0302963. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302963. eCollection 2024.
This article utilizes survey data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) to examine whether grandparents' health disadvantage have both direct and indirect effects on the health disadvantage of their grandchildren, and whether the completion of compulsory education by parents disrupts these intergenerational transmissions in China. The findings suggest that grandparents' health disadvantage significantly increases the probability of grandchildren's health disadvantage with and without controlling parental health disadvantage and other characteristics. Moreover, the study identifies a disruptive influence of parental education on this transmission process. Rigorous robustness tests, including the use of the Compulsory Education Law as an instrumental variable to control for unobserved factors, validate these results. Mechanism analysis shows that parents completing compulsory education contribute to improving their nutritional balance and adopting healthy behaviors, attaining higher social status, earning higher income, which ultimately reduce the probability of health disadvantage for both themselves and their children. These findings highlight the persistent intergenerational transmission of health disparities within families and emphasize the importance of enhancing individuals' education levels to disrupt this transmission. By doing so, it may be possible to mitigate health inequalities and disparities across the population.
本文利用中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）的数据，检验了祖辈健康劣势是否对孙辈的健康劣势具有直接和间接影响，以及父母完成义务教育是否会打断这种代际传递。研究结果表明，在控制父母健康劣势和其他特征的情况下，祖辈健康劣势显著增加了孙辈健康劣势的可能性。此外，研究还发现，父母的教育程度对这一传递过程有干扰作用。严格的稳健性检验，包括使用义务教育法作为工具变量来控制未观测因素，验证了这些结果。机制分析表明，父母完成义务教育有助于改善他们的营养平衡和健康行为，获得更高的社会地位，赚取更高的收入，这最终降低了他们自己和孩子健康劣势的可能性。这些发现突显了家庭内部健康差异的持续代际传递，并强调了提高个人教育水平以打断这种传递的重要性。通过这样做，可能会减轻人口中的健康不平等和差距。
