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Abstract
This paper investigates whether children’s political success contributes to social stratification and health inequality among older adults. Using China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) data, we investigate whether having a cadre (i.e., politically employed) child substantially increases overall cognitive functioning among older adults. We find that the beneficial effect of having a cadre child on cognitive functioning is equivalent to a 1.5-year increase in education, even after controlling for other variables related to general intelligence. This positive effect is more salient among parents of higher-ranking cadre children, and more salient in less-marketized regions. The results of a Sobel test suggest that about one-fifth of the effect can be explained by the channel of increased social interaction.
Acknowledgments
We thank Feinian Chen, Will Dow, Joshua Goldstein, Wei Huang, Ronald Lee, Xiaogang Wu, and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. All errors are our own.
Notes
According to the news report on China Daily. Retrieved from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2014-03/27/content_17385340.htm.
We also use the sum of original scores as an alternative of overall measure and get almost the same findings.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Huaqing Tan
Huaqing Tan is a joint postdoctoral fellow at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University and Harvest Fund Management Co., Ltd. His research focuses on the role of demographic dynamics on asset allocation.
Chaoran Guo
Chaoran Guo is a PhD candidate in Health Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. Her main fields of interest are industrial organization, health economics, and applied microeconomics. She has published in Tobacco Control, International Journal of Epidemiology and PloS One.
Yi Zhou
Yi Zhou is an assistant professor in the Center for Social Research at Peking University. His research interests include social gerontology, population aging, and economic demography. He has published journal articles in Social Science & Medicine, Population and Development Review and Economics Letters.