Maternal employment and childhood obesity in China: evidence from the China Health and Nutrition Survey

Abstract

Using five waves from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), we investigate the association between maternal employment and obesity in children aged 3-17 in both rural and urban China. Using BMI and waist circumference as measures for pediatric adiposity, we provide scant evidence for its relation to maternal employment. We also find no strong association between maternal employment and our measures for children's diet and physical activity. Our study also suggests that grandparenting could have beneficial effects on childhood obesity. JEL Classification Codes: I12, J13, J22

Maternal employment and childhood overweight in Germany

“…Whereas a negative effect has been found for Denmark using an instrumental variable (IV) strategy (Greve, 2011), no relationship appears in cross-sectional data from China and selected European regions (Nie and Sousa-Poza, 2014;Gwozdz et al, 2013). Studies focusing on paternal labor supply consistently find no evidence that a father's employment status is related to child weight (e.g., Ziol-Guest et al, 2013;Miller, 2011;Greve, 2011).…”

“…Consequently, the direction of the relationship between maternal employment and child overweight is a priori unclear and a positive as well as a negative relationship is conceivable. The empirical evidence is inconsistent regarding the direction of the relationship between maternal employment and child overweight and most of the existing studies focus on maternal employment in early childhood (e.g., Gwozdz et al, 2013) or the entire childhood (e.g., Nie and Sousa-Poza, 2014). A widespread finding among studies from the US and the UK is that maternal employment is correlated with an increased risk of child overweight, even in a causal manner (e.g., Anderson et al, 2003;Ruhm, 2008 for the USA; von Hinke Kessler Scholder, 2008 for the UK).…”

The impact of maternal employment on children's adiposity: Evidence from China's labor policy reform

“…A handful of studies examine various determinants of child health in China, such as diet quality (Chen, 2000), migration (De Brauw & Mu, 2011), income (Du, Mroz, Zhai, & Popkin, 2004), parental employment (Liu, Fang, & Zhao, 2013), and food prices (Lu & Goldman, 2010). Studies on the effect of maternal employment on children's adiposity are especially limited, and to the best of our knowledge, Nie and Sousa-Poza (2014) is the only study that examines this effect.…”

“…In the late 1990s, China had a higher proportion of underweight children (13%) compared to other developing countries with dual-burden households, such as Russia (8%) and Brazil (9%) (Wang et al, 2002a). 2 The employment rate of mothers aged 25 to 34 with children under the age of six is 72% (Third Survey on Chinese Women's Social Status, cited in Wang, 2011). countries (Bose, 2011;Cunningham, Ruel, Ferguson, & Uauy, 2015;Nie and Sousa-Poza, 2014;Sethuraman, Lansdown, & Sullivan, 2006). The paper proceeds as follows.…”

Is maternal employment related to childhood obesity?

“…The European study investigates the correlation between maternal employment and childhood obesity for children aged 2-9 in 16 regions in eight European countries (Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and Sweden) and finds little evidence of an association [1]. The same is true for the Chinese study, which uses data from five waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey and finds no correlation with maternal employment among children ages 3-17 [2]. The Australian study, which looks at children aged 5-15 using data from the representative South Australian Monitoring and Surveillance System, finds no correlation between maternal employment and childhood obesity either [3].…”