The Relationship Between Tourism And Family Members Depression In China ——An Empirical Study Based On China Family Panel Studies (CFPS2018)

With the development of economy and the intensification of social competitiveness,depression has increasingly become a major psychological problem that plagues mankind.As a pleasant leisure activity,tourism plays a significant role in promoting mental health.The previous literature mostly carried out research on the relationship between tourism and mental health from an individual perspective.The sample size of the research is small,and there may be group specificities,which cannot represent the general public.This article uses the 2018 data of the Chinese Family Panel Studies（CFPS）to try to empirically analyze the impact of tourism on depression at the family level,and explore the mechanism and pathways of tourism influencing depression,hoping to understand the role of tourism in preventing and alleviating depression in Chinese families effect.First of all,This article reviews related literature on tourism and depression,family and depression,and then uses CFPS（2018）data to conduct an empirical analysis of the relationship between tourism and family member depression based on the Leisure and Health Model.The details are as follows: First,use the Ordinary Least Squares（OLS）regression model to test whether there is a causal relationship between tourism and family member depression;second,discuss the differences in the effects of tourism on family members’ depression in families with different characteristics;third,after determining that tourism significantly affects family members’ depression,construct a mediating effect model from the perspective of family support and family self-determination,Three methods,including stepwise regression coefficient method,Sobel-Goodman test and Bootstrap test,were used to verify its influence mechanism and action path;fourth,the instrumental variable method is introduced to try to solve the endogenous problem in this article;finally,The robustness test by replacing the independent and dependent variables confirms the robustness of the relationship between tourism and family member depression.The results of the study show that: Firstly,compared with families without tourism consumption expenditure,households with tourism consumption expenditures have a lower proportion of family members’ depression;tourism can significantly negatively affect family members’ depression.Secondly,there is heterogeneity in the effect of tourism on family members’ depression,which is specifically manifested in the four aspects of family residence,area,family annual income and education level of the head of the household.Third,family support and family self-determination can partially mediate the impact of travel on family members’ depression.Travel can reduce the proportion of family members’ depression by increasing family members’ trust,intimacy and confidence in the future.Finally,after using the instrumental variable method to deal with endogenous problems and replacing variables for robustness testing,the regression results are still significant,confirming the negative effect of tourism on family members’ depression.