Wang Yanshang, He Ping
School of Public Health, Peking University, 38 Xue Yuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100191, China.
China Center for Health Development Studies, Peking University, 38 Xue Yuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100191, China.
Depress Anxiety. 2024 Jul 11;2024:4110906. doi: 10.1155/2024/4110906. eCollection 2024.
The acquisition of a college education is typically indicative of a resource advantage. However, in recent years, college graduates have faced increasing mental health related issues. The health advantages derived from this resource advantage have become increasingly less pronounced. This study aims to examine the effects of college education on depressive symptoms.
We used data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), and combined this dataset with Chinese Education Examination Yearbook. We took advantage of variations in educational attainment, which was generated by college expansion policy, and adopted instrumental variables (IV) approach to identify the causal relationship.
Our findings indicated that college education did not have a causal effect on promoting mental health. The results were supported by the fact that they held within each subgroup. Notably, our limited evidence suggested that college expansion policy promoted equity in educational access.
This study provided new and valuable evidence of education-induced health inequalities from the top of the education distribution.
获得大学教育通常表明具有资源优势。然而，近年来，大学毕业生面临着越来越多与心理健康相关的问题。这种资源优势所带来的健康优势变得越来越不明显。本研究旨在探讨大学教育对抑郁症状的影响。
我们使用了中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）的数据，并将该数据集与《中国教育考试年鉴》相结合。我们利用了大学扩招政策所产生的教育程度差异，并采用工具变量（IV）方法来确定因果关系。
我们的研究结果表明，大学教育对促进心理健康没有因果效应。各亚组内的结果均支持这一结论。值得注意的是，我们有限的证据表明，大学扩招政策促进了教育机会的公平性。
本研究从教育分布顶端提供了教育导致健康不平等的新的有价值的证据。
