多子多福？——子女数量对父母健康的影响

常言道“多子多福”，调查的数据是否支持该论断呢？本文利用《城市居民家庭生活调查》数据研究了子女数量对父母健康的影响。为了解决子女数量内生性问题，本文在估计中使用了工具变量的方法进行分析。研究结果显示当不考虑内生性问题时，子女越多的父母亲其健康自评水平越高，但当使用工具变量进行估计时子女数量对父母的健康自评产生了显著的负面影响。本文分析还发现子女数量对男性健康自评的负面影响要大于对女性健康自评的影响。这可能是因为相对于女性而言，子女越多男性抚养子女的压力越大导致的。

An Analysis of the Effects of Children Number on Parental Health Condition

An old saying claim that the more children one has, the higher sense of happier one enjoy, is it true at present？ This paper, based on the data from Survey of Family Life in Urban China （1999） , tests the effect of the children number on parents＇ subjective health assessment. The instrument variable （IV） approach is used in this analysis to control the endogeneity of children number. The findings show that that the number of children has indeed a positive effect on parents＇ subjective health assessment without consideration of the endogeneity of the variable, while the effect of children number on parents＇ subjective health assessment turns to be significantly negative under IV approach. It is found that males boast of higher negative effect than the female, a possible reason is that the males may face more pressures in bringing-up children.