Digital technology is transforming children’s daily routines and can potentially have long-lasting effects on their lives. This paper studies the impact of internet access on the health and subjective wellbeing of Chinese children. To conduct such analysis, we employ data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), a longitudinal dataset of Chinese seventh-year students representative of the whole country. This database allows us to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity and socioeconomic characteristics. We use two alternative methods to address endogeneity concerns. The first one employs a recursive system of equations that allows unobserved individual heterogeneity to simultaneously affect both health outcomes and digital access. The second approach exploits the fact that Chinese students cannot choose which school to attend and employ the proportion of students owning a computer in the same school as an instrumental variable. Regardless of the method, we find that internet access improves health. We also find some positive impact of digital access on subjective wellbeing, albeit the evidence is weaker. This stands in stark contrast to prior research, which has found a negative effect of internet use on mental health in Western countries.

On the Importance of Internet Access for Children's Health and Subjective Well-being: The Case of China / Guan, Jing; TENA HORRILLO, Juan de Dios. - In: APPLIED ECONOMICS. - ISSN 0003-6846. - (2024). [10.1080/00036846.2024.2384672]

On the Importance of Internet Access for Children's Health and Subjective Well-being: The Case of China

Juan de Dios TENA HORRILLO
2024-01-01

Abstract

Digital technology is transforming children’s daily routines and can potentially have long-lasting effects on their lives. This paper studies the impact of internet access on the health and subjective wellbeing of Chinese children. To conduct such analysis, we employ data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), a longitudinal dataset of Chinese seventh-year students representative of the whole country. This database allows us to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity and socioeconomic characteristics. We use two alternative methods to address endogeneity concerns. The first one employs a recursive system of equations that allows unobserved individual heterogeneity to simultaneously affect both health outcomes and digital access. The second approach exploits the fact that Chinese students cannot choose which school to attend and employ the proportion of students owning a computer in the same school as an instrumental variable. Regardless of the method, we find that internet access improves health. We also find some positive impact of digital access on subjective wellbeing, albeit the evidence is weaker. This stands in stark contrast to prior research, which has found a negative effect of internet use on mental health in Western countries.
2024
On the Importance of Internet Access for Children's Health and Subjective Well-being: The Case of China / Guan, Jing; TENA HORRILLO, Juan de Dios. - In: APPLIED ECONOMICS. - ISSN 0003-6846. - (2024). [10.1080/00036846.2024.2384672]
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11388/340590
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact