Do only children have poor vision? Evidence from China's One-Child Policy
This paper examines whether only children have poor vision by exploiting the quasinatural experiment generated by the Chinese One‐Child Policy. The results suggest that being an only child increases the incidence of myopia by 9.1 percentage points. We further investigate the mechanisms through which...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wiley
2018
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51604/ |
| _version_ | 1848798530621145088 |
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| author | Zhao, Liqiu Zhou, Minghai |
| author_facet | Zhao, Liqiu Zhou, Minghai |
| author_sort | Zhao, Liqiu |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This paper examines whether only children have poor vision by exploiting the quasinatural experiment generated by the Chinese One‐Child Policy. The results suggest that being an only child increases the incidence of myopia by 9.1 percentage points. We further investigate the mechanisms through which being an only child affects the myopia and find that only children, as the only hope in a household, receive higher expectations in terms of academic performance and future educational attainment and pressure to succeed in life from parents, which contribute to the increased myopia. We also find that the school quality of only children is significantly higher than that of non‐only children. This study provides new insights into an important health consequence of One‐Child Policy in China. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:21:14Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-51604 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:21:14Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-516042019-04-23T04:30:15Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51604/ Do only children have poor vision? Evidence from China's One-Child Policy Zhao, Liqiu Zhou, Minghai This paper examines whether only children have poor vision by exploiting the quasinatural experiment generated by the Chinese One‐Child Policy. The results suggest that being an only child increases the incidence of myopia by 9.1 percentage points. We further investigate the mechanisms through which being an only child affects the myopia and find that only children, as the only hope in a household, receive higher expectations in terms of academic performance and future educational attainment and pressure to succeed in life from parents, which contribute to the increased myopia. We also find that the school quality of only children is significantly higher than that of non‐only children. This study provides new insights into an important health consequence of One‐Child Policy in China. Wiley 2018-04-23 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51604/1/Myopia%20and%20One%20Child%20Policy.pdf Zhao, Liqiu and Zhou, Minghai (2018) Do only children have poor vision? Evidence from China's One-Child Policy. Health Economics . ISSN 1099-1050 China; educational pressure; myopia; One-Child Policy https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/hec.3661 doi:10.1002/hec.3661 doi:10.1002/hec.3661 |
| spellingShingle | China; educational pressure; myopia; One-Child Policy Zhao, Liqiu Zhou, Minghai Do only children have poor vision? Evidence from China's One-Child Policy |
| title | Do only children have poor vision? Evidence from China's One-Child Policy |
| title_full | Do only children have poor vision? Evidence from China's One-Child Policy |
| title_fullStr | Do only children have poor vision? Evidence from China's One-Child Policy |
| title_full_unstemmed | Do only children have poor vision? Evidence from China's One-Child Policy |
| title_short | Do only children have poor vision? Evidence from China's One-Child Policy |
| title_sort | do only children have poor vision? evidence from china's one-child policy |
| topic | China; educational pressure; myopia; One-Child Policy |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51604/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51604/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51604/ |