Does money relieve depression? Evidence from social pension expansions in China

We estimate the impact of pension enrollment on mental well-being using China's New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS), the largest existing pension program in the world. Since its launch in 2009, more than 400 million Chinese have enrolled in the NRPS. We first describe plausible pathways through whi...

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Vydané v:Social science & medicine (1982) Ročník 220; s. 411 - 420
Hlavní autori: Chen, Xi, Wang, Tianyu, Busch, Susan H.
Médium: Journal Article
Jazyk:English
Vydavateľské údaje: England Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2019
Pergamon Press Inc
Predmet:
China
Chinese languages
Depression
Depression - psychology
Enrollments
Falsification
Female
Humans
Income
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Mental depression
Mental health
Middle Aged
Money
Older populations
Pension enrollment
Pension income
Pensions - statistics & numerical data
Program implementation
Robustness
Rural areas
Rural communities
Rural Population
Self Report
Symptoms
Well being
China
Pension enrollment
I18
Pension income
Mental health
Depression
H55
J14
Older populations
I38
ISSN:0277-9536, 1873-5347, 1873-5347
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Shrnutí:We estimate the impact of pension enrollment on mental well-being using China's New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS), the largest existing pension program in the world. Since its launch in 2009, more than 400 million Chinese have enrolled in the NRPS. We first describe plausible pathways through which pension may affect mental health. We then use the national sample of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) to examine the effect of pension enrollment on mental health, as measured by CES-D and self-reported depressive symptoms. To overcome the endogeneity of pension enrollment or of income change on mental health, we exploit geographic variation in pension program implementation. Results indicate modest to large reductions in depressive symptoms due to pension enrollment; this effect is more pronounced among individuals eligible to claim pension income, among populations with more financial constraints, and among those with worse baseline mental health. Our findings hold for a rich set of robustness checks and falsification tests. •We study the causal effect of income on mental health using a pension expansion.•Pension enrollment generates modest to large reductions in depressive symptoms.•The beneficial effect is more pronounced among older adults than younger cohorts.•Stronger effect for the less educated, mentally ill, and with financial constraints.•Offer more income to those mentally ill can be more cost-effective than treatment.
Bibliografia:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
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ISSN:0277-9536
1873-5347
1873-5347
DOI:10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.12.004