When investment backfires: Unbalanced sex ratios and mental health among boys in rural areas

Abstract

BACKGROUND In China, a key feature of demographic transition is the abnormally high sex ratio, resulting in a shortage of brides. In addition, depressive symptoms among Chinese adolescents have risen sharply in the last decade, and among these adolescents, boys in rural areas are most likely to be depressed. OBJECTIVE In this study, we investigate the phenomenon of depression in a large number of rural boys. We hypothesize that upon perceiving the strong competition in the local marriage market, rural parents tend to increase educational investment to improve their sons’ relative standing in the market, thereby leading to high pressure and depression among rural boys. we constructed a difference-in-differences model featuring rich fixed to absorb invariant confounding factors and cohort trends across To ensure the of we studied the first the child’s gender.