Three Essays On Population And Health Economics

China's population growth is at on important turning point.Both the internal dynamics and external conditions of population development in China are undergoing profound changes in the first two decades of the 21 st century.It is of great significance to accurately understand the characteristics of this trend and the challenges it brought about to the population security and socioeconomic development.According to the National Population Development Plan(2016-2030),China's population development in the next 15 years will have the following characteristics: 1)the population growth inertia is weakening,and reaching its peak around 2030;2)the working age population is dropping,and the labor force is aging with a faster speed;3)the proportion of children is dropping;4)migration is still active,and population concentration is further enhanced;5)birth gender ratio slowly turns to normal,and households composition shows a trend of diversification;6)the population of ethnic minorities increases and the population growth is regionally unbalanced.In order to alleviate the pressure of aging on the demographic structure and to meet the socioeconomic challenges,China has adopted various policy measures to properly increase the fertility desire,improve the health and socioeconomic capacity of the population,and eliminate the obstacles to population migration within the country.This doctoral thesis studies three topics closely relevant to the current population trends in the scope of population economics and health economics,shedding light on the associations between various factors and individual outcomes,and provides corresponding policy references.The first chapter is “Effects of Drought on Infant Mortality in China”.This chapter studies Guizhou Province,a region in the Southwest China with tough geographical conditions and poor economic development,where I examine the effect of early life exposure to rainfall shocks on contemporaneous infant health and long run socioeconomic outcomes.The results indicate that negative rainfall shocks are robustly correlated with higher infant mortality rates and higher chances of low birthweight.In the long run,early-life rainfall shortages significantly limit an adult's income and housing conditions.For the underlying channels,the study also documents a significant interaction of rainfall shocks with the severity of drinking water scarcity.This result implies that drinking water safety is a crucial channel through which early-life rainfall shocks determine the individual health endowments.On the other hand,agriculture production is not a likely channel for rainfall and drought effects,despite its clear association with infant mortality.Accordingly,the empirical results suggest that improving public facility coverage will reduce the vulnerability of infant health to adverse rainfall shocks in Guizhou and other developing areas with similar geomorphic difficulties.The second chapter is titled as “Social Security and Second Birth Intention of Migrants--Evidence from Rural and Urban Basic Medical Insurances”.Using data from the 2014 China Migrant Population Dynamic Survey(MDMS 2014),I document a significant positive effect of participating the New Rural Cooperative Medical Schemes(NRCMS)on the fertility desire for a second child(FDSC)in migrant families with rural hukou.I also find negative effect from the Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance(UEBMI)and Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance(URBMI)on FDSC in urban hukou migrants.Heterogeneity analysis imply that such a difference may come from the relatively weak substitution effect and strong subsidizing effect from the NRCMS on a second child for rural migrants.I also find positive effect on FDSC from the Selective Two-child(STC)policy on the urban migrants newly eligible for a second child.The study results suggest that sufficient subsidies from the government may be crucial to promote fertility rate in migrants.The third chapter is named as “Body Height,Cognitive Ability and Labor Market Outcomes in China”.This chapter analyzes the China Family Panel Survey(CFPS)data and provides evidence for the prevalent cognitive-ability-driven height premium on China's labor market.As an indicator of intelligence potential,education attainment both positively correlates to height and explains a large proportion of the height premium in wages and cognitive test scores.By exploring the relative roles of cognitive skills and strength in occupational sorting and within-occupational wagepremium,I find that taller workers go into occupations with higher cognitive skill requirements and receive higher pay within high-skill occupations.I also propose novel instrument variables for the identification of appearance effect of height.Results of the chapter support the use of height as an indicator of cognitive abilities in future studies,and stress the importance of childhood conditions for intelligence human capital accumulation in adulthood.