Tuesday, October 21, 2014 | 1:00pm - | Room 237, HSBC Business School Building

Abstract

Past efforts to estimate the effect of parental employment on child health have often suffered from endogeneity issues. Using the longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, we provide new evidence on the effect of parental labor supply on child health. Our main identification strategy relies on the 1995 legislative change to the labor regulations that decreased the number of working days from six days per week to five days without change in wages. We find that reduction in parental labor supply improves child health in China.