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

TitleOn the Importance of Internet Access for Children's Health and Subjective Well-being: The Case of China
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2024
AuthorsGuan, J, HORRILLO, Jde Dios TE
JournalAPPLIED ECONOMICS
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.

URLhttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00036846.2024.2384672
DOI10.1080/00036846.2024.2384672
Keywordshealth, Instrumental Variable, Internet access, Subjective Well-Being