Gender Differences In The Impact Of Early Health Investment On Adolescents' Long-term Non-cognitive Abilitie

With the rapid development of economy and technology,communication and cooperation at work have become closer,and the important role of non-cognitive ability in individual cognitive ability,labor market performance and social behavior is constantly being discovered.Some researchers have begun to study what affects the development of non-cognitive abilities.Human capital investment in early life can often affect the productivity of investment in the next stage through the multiplier effect of skills,that is,the self-production and dynamic complement of skills.The earlier human capital investment is made in adolescents,the better the effect will be achieved.Based on the existing related research on the noncognitive ability,using the methods of empirical analysis,we study if investments in early life helps teenagers promote their non-cognitive skills for a long time,and whether it has gender heterogeneity,finally we put forward an effect mechanism,and examine the robustness of results in this paper.This paper aims to fill in the gap of domestic research on whether early health affects long-term non-cognitive ability of adolescents,and provide theoretical and practical support for further optimizing policy making and improving family investment programs.First,refer to the existing literature,this paper uses the Law on Maternal and Child Health of June 1995 as a measure of early health inputs,using the big five personality model as a measure of the noncognitive ability,and then using the 2010,2011,and2012 CFPS survey data.This study empirically studied the influence of early health investment on non-cognitive ability of 10-20 years old adolescents by using breakpoint-differential difference method.After verifying that the data conformed to the condition of breakpoint left and right continuity,we performed regression analysis.All the regression analyses in this paper use 2-month bandwidth.In the full sample regression,we did not observe a significant effect of early health investment.In the regression analysis by gender group,this paper found that the openness and emotional stability of male students affected by the policy increased by0.62 and 0.38 standard deviations,respectively,while the emotional stability of female students decreased by 0.566 standard deviations.In the mechanism analysis part,we combined the existing study and proposed a mechanism.Boys and girls who affected by the Law on Maternal and Child Health,medical costs are significantly decreased,at the same time with our family of adolescent education spending as the proxy variable,we found that early health investment does not change the family future investment in boys and girls,in other words,gender differences in non-cognitive abilities are not due to differences in family investment.Finally,using the peer effect,we found that when the peer becomes better,the emotional stability of the girls decreases,while the boys are not significantly affected by the peer effect,which explains the different effects of the Law on Maternal and Child Health.At the end of the empirical analysis we conducted five robustness tests.The first is the sensitivity test of bandwidth.We perform regression on the possible bandwidth from January to May and find that the signs of regression coefficients are consistent.The second is the pseudo breakpoint test.We selected the four pseudo breakpoints in June 1994,March 1995,September 1995 and June 1996 to test the influence on the five abilities and health level of male and female students respectively,and found that the results of this paper are not caused by randomness of data.The third is the mean sample test.There are principal component analysis method and mean method for the big Five measurement of adult samples.In the principal regression,the Big Five calculated by the principal component method is adopted.The fourth is the robustness test of children’s samples.This paper carries out regressions in the small sample of children,excluding the influence of different ways of measuring the five abilities of adults and children on the results,and the sign of regression coefficient in the sample of children is consistent with the whole sample.Finally,the propensity score matching method was used to exclude the significant difference between the experimental group and the control group.The regression results of the nearest neighbor matching method,nuclear matching method and radius matching method did not change significantly in the coefficient and significance level,so the results of this paper are robust.Finally,this paper puts forward some policy suggestions based on the research results.We should continue to pay attention to the critical period of children’s development,pay attention to the investment in early health,and promote the common healthy growth of children.