Family Income Quality,Consumption Structure And Rural Children’s Health

The health of children is an important of human capital.It is not only related to children’s growth and development but also an important quality to support their academic performance and future work.It is clearly pointed out in “National Program of Action for Child Development in China” that “to promote socialist modernization and achieve all-round economic and social progress,the improvement of national quality and the development of human resources must be taken as a strategic task;to realize this goal,we must cultivate high-quality talents to meet the needs of the new century starting from their childhood.” With the implementation of policies such as “National Program of Action for Child Development in China(2011-2020)” and “National Program of Action for Child Development in China(2021-2030)” and the promotion of the national strategy of “Healthy China”,the health level and nutritional status of Chinese children have been receiving more and more attention.The development and health of children in rural areas of China,as a sensitive and important indicator reflecting the overall health status and living standards of rural residents,are still facing a lot of problems and challenges,and the situation of rural children is much worse than that of urban children in terms of household care and economic conditions.The statistical monitoring report of “National Program of Action for Child Development in China(2011-2020)” shows that the low weight rate and growth retardation rate of children in rural areas are about 3-4 times higher than those in urban areas.The health status of rural children is not optimistic,especially the overall development level of children in poor areas is low,which has become a key factor restricting the healthy development of children in China.Children,as a special group,do not have the ability to invest in their own health and cannot obtain health independently.Thus,the economic status and quality of support of rural household are very important to the healthy development of children.Therefore,how to properly solve the parenting and health problems of rural children has also become a prominent problem to be solved urgently.Based on previous researches and taking the health status of rural children as the research object,this paper utilizes household production function,income theory and theory of the allocation of time to construct a theoretical model and explain the mechanism of household income quality of the health of rural children under the double constraints of “economic investment” and “time investment”.The analytical framework of “rural household’ income quality – consumption structure – children’s health” and3,234 rural children samples from 26 provinces/cities/autonomous regions in China Household Panel Studies(CFPS)are adopted to verify the relationship between rural household’ income quality,consumption structure and the impact on children’s health,which clarifies that household’ income quality plays a key role in affecting rural children’s health.Also,key constraints restricting the health status of rural children are pointed out,and an empirical test is conducted to verify the path for household income quality and consumption structure to affect the health of rural children.This paper aims to promote the improvement of rural household’ income quality and the optimization of their consumption structure so as to improve rural children’s health level.It provides relevant theoretical support and references for the smooth implementation of “National Program of Action for Child Development in China(2021-2030)” and the strategy of“Healthy China”.The main research contents and findings of this paper are as follows:First,it is theoretical analysis.Firstly,it analyzes the impact of rural household income quality on consumption structure based on absolute income theory,relative income theory and permanent income hypothesis;Secondly,based on the health demand theory,this paper uses the utility maximization analysis method to explore the impact of consumption structure on rural children’s health;Thirdly,this paper analyzes the direct impact of household income quality on rural children’s health by using children’s health production theory and health demand theory,and further analyzes the indirect impact of household income quality on rural children’s health based on household production function theory.Finally,the theoretical framework of this study is constructed.The results show that the quality of household income can promote the consumption structure;consumption structure has a positive impact on rural children’s health;the quality of household income has a direct impact on rural children’s health and an indirect impact on rural children’s health through the intermediary effect of consumption structure,and the intermediary effect of non-agricultural employment on consumption structure has a regulatory effect.Second,it is the impact of household income quality on consumption structure.This paper constructs the household income quality system of rural residents from the five dimensions of rural residents’ household income and its adequacy,structure,growth,cost and knowledge;OLS is used to empirically test the impact of household income quality and its dimensions on consumption structure,and the robustness test is carried out by changing the quantitative method of explained variables and subdividing samples.At the same time,Threshold Regression Model(TRM)is used to further discuss the nonlinear relationship between household income quality and consumption structure.The results show that household income quality has a significant positive impact on the optimization of consumption structure,and the impact of different dimensions of household income quality on consumption structure is significantly different.Specifically,at the significance level of 5%,the improvement of household income quality by one unit will increase the optimization degree of consumption structure by0.2056 units;at the significant level of 1%,every increase in the adequacy,growth and knowledge of household income will increase the optimization degree of consumption structure by 0.2056,0.0117 and 0.0699 units respectively,and every increase in cost will decrease the optimization degree of consumption structure by 0.0433 units;at the significant level of 5%,the structural improvement of household income by one unit will increase the optimization degree of consumption structure by 0.1143 units.Through comparison,it is found that the estimation coefficient of knowledge has the greatest impact on the consumption structure in all dimensions of household income quality,and the significance is the strongest.Then comes the cost,adequacy and growth,and finally the structure.And the impact of household income quality on consumption structure is“positive U-shaped”.When the household income quality is less than or equal to the threshold of 0.1838,the negative impact of the improvement of household income quality on the consumption structure is significant at the statistical level of 5%;and when the household income quality is greater than the threshold of 0.1838,the positive impact of the improvement of household income quality on the consumption structure is significant at the statistical level of 1%.Third,the impact of consumption structure on rural children’s health.OLS and binary choice model(Probit)are used to analyze the impact of consumption structure on rural children’s health.This study establishes a regulatory effect model to analyze the regulatory effect of non-agricultural employment on the impact of consumption structure and rural children’s health,and makes a robustness test to further analyze the gender heterogeneity of the impact of consumption structure on rural children’s health.The results show that: firstly,the consumption structure has a significant positive impact on the illness,medical treatment and nutritional health of rural children.Specifically,at the significance level of 1%,the probability of illness and medical treatment of rural children will increase by 0.1716 percentage points and the nutritional health of rural children will increase by 0.0066 units for each unit of optimization of consumption structure.That is,the consumption structure not only improves the nutritional and health level of rural children,but also increases the probability of children’s illness and medical treatment.Secondly,non-agricultural employment has a significant regulatory effect on the impact of consumption structure and rural children’s health.Specifically,at the significance level of 5%,the positive impact of consumption structure on rural children’s medical treatment will increase by 0.3938 percentage points for each unit of non-agricultural employment;at the significance level of 1%,the promotion effect of consumption structure on the nutritional health of rural children will be reduced by0.0441 units for each unit of non-agricultural employment.That is,non-agricultural employment strengthens the positive impact of consumption structure on rural children’s medical treatment.Non-agricultural employment has a significant negative regulatory effect on the impact of consumption structure and children’s nutritional health,that is,non-agricultural employment weakens the promotion effect of consumption structure on children’s nutritional health,and there is an obvious substitution relationship between consumption structure and non-agricultural employment on children’s nutritional health.Fourth,the intermediary effect test of consumption structure in the impact of household income quality on rural children’s health.OLS and Probit are used to empirically test the impact of household income quality and its dimensions on the health of rural children.A mediating effect model is established to analyze the relationship between household income quality,consumption structure and rural children’s health;a regulated intermediary effect model is established to analyze the regulatory effect of non-agricultural employment on the intermediary effect of consumption structure,and the bootstrap intermediary test method is used to test the robustness and obtain the influence path model.The results show that: firstly,household income quality can significantly promote the health of rural children,and the effects of different dimensions of household income quality on children’s health are significantly different.For every increase in household income quality by one unit,the probability of illness and medical treatment of rural children will be reduced by 0.2682 percentage points,and the nutritional health level of rural children will be increased by 0.0260 units.Secondly,consumption structure has a mediating effect on the impact of household income quality on rural children’s health.Specifically,the intermediary effect of household income quality on rural children’s illness and medical treatment through consumption structure is-0.0309,and the intermediary effect of household income quality on children’s nutritional health through consumption structure is 0.0032,which has passed the significance level test of 10% and 5% respectively.That is,consumption structure has a significant intermediary effect in the impact of household income quality on rural children’s health.Finally,non-agricultural employment has a significant regulatory effect on the intermediary effect.Specifically,for every unit of non-agricultural employment,the intermediary effect of consumption structure on rural children’s medical treatment will be increased by 0.8297 percentage points,and the intermediary effect of consumption structure on the nutritional health of rural children will be reduced by 0.0468 units.That is,non-agricultural employment has a significant regulatory effect on the intermediary effect of consumption structure,which weakens the intermediary effect of consumption structure on rural children’s health.Based on the above analysis,the following policy implications are obtained:First,it is necessary to improve household income quality and strengthen the material basis of rural children’s health.Second,there is a need to guide rural residents to change their consumption concept and optimize the consumption structure of rural families.Third,we need to improve the rural social support system and make up for the lack of social resources.Fourth,it is necessary to improve the allocation and utilization efficiency of rural medical services and improve the quality of rural children’s medical services.Fifth,the rural transfer population should be urbanized locally and nearby to alleviate the pressure on rural children’s families.The possible innovations of this paper are as follows:First,in terms of research ideas,this study constructs a research framework based on the double perspectives of “economic investment” and “time investment”,discusses the determinants and internal mechanism of rural children’s healthy production behavior from the family level,and breaks through the research ideas of most previous studies from a certain perspective.Based on the reality of production and life in rural China,combined with the characteristics of rural families in China,this paper selects the consumption structure as the intermediary variable of the impact of rural household income quality on children’s health.On the basis of revealing the impact of rural household income quality on consumption structure and children’s health,this paper further explores the regulatory effect of parents’ non-agricultural employment on the intermediary effect of consumption structure and children’s health,and further promotes the existing research.Second,in terms of the research content,in the existing studies,rural household income quality has not attracted much attention,and there are few domestic quantitative studies on the analysis and measurement of rural household income quality.With the continuous change of China’s economy,policy and external environment,the increase of farmers’ economic income and the change of income structure,measuring the rural family economic situation is no longer simply limited to the change of quantity.It is also one-sided to explore the impact of household income on the health of rural children only from the aspects of income level and income source.This paper measures the income quality of rural families from five dimensions: sufficiency,structure,growth,cost and knowledge of household income,which can reflect the qualitative characteristics of rural household income,accurately reflect the sum of the characteristics of household income’s participation in economic activities and the feasible ability of rural families to participate in specific economic activities,and make the conclusions and suggestions closer to reality.Third,from the research point of view,when empirically analyzing the impact of household income quality on consumption structure,this paper not only focuses on the linear relationship between household income quality and consumption structure,but also finds the nonlinear relationship between household income quality and consumption structure.And the threshold regression model is used to further test,and it is found that the impact of household income quality on consumption structure is “positive U-shaped”,which may be a supplement and expansion to the previous research.