Teaching for happiness: The impact of teachers’ education on student mental health

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of teachers’ schooling on student mental health in junior high schools in China. Based on the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) data, we exploit the random nature of class assignment for causal identification. The results show that students taught by head teachers with more years of schooling tend to have better mental health outcomes. This effect is shown to operate through several channels: more educated teachers tend to handle students’ mental health problems in a more scientific manner; they also have more effective communication with parents regarding their children's mental health, which potentially cultivates more responsive parenting styles and a closer parent-child relationship; better-educated head teachers also induce higher peer quality for their students. Among them, teachers’ specific know-how on student mental health problems and the role of parents are identified as primary mechanisms. Subsample analyses show the impact of teachers’ schooling on student mental health is larger for students with less maternal schooling, rural students, and male students. Our findings enrich the literature on the education-health gradient, and contribute to the understanding of the social welfare gains of enhancing schoolteachers’ human capital.