Mental Health, Cognitive Ability and Family Income—Empirical Analysis Based on the Follow-up Survey of Chinese Households

Department of Statistics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 8UW, UK

Abstract

This article uses the 2018 Chinese Family Tracking Survey data to empirically analyze the impact of mental health on family income and explore the mediating role of cognitive ability. The results show that for every 1% reduction in the family's mental unhealthy degree measured by the CES-D8 score, the family income level will increase by 1.7%-1.9%. After adding the pre-determined explanatory variable 2016 mental state level and other operations, use the filtered loneliness As an instrumental variable, the same conclusion was obtained by performing 2-stage least squares; the results of indirect calculation show that the mediating effect of cognitive ability is about 16.96% of the total effect of mental health affecting family income level; in terms of heterogeneity analysis, Researched that the impact of mental health problems at different family income levels is different. The marginal effect of the mental health impact of low-income families is as high as -2.9%. The mental health status of the family finance chief has a significant impact on the income of the entire family , Especially low-income families.