Parents‘ long work hours and child and adolescent health in China

Project summary:  There is increasing research on the impact of the 24 hours/7 days economy on children’s health and wellbeing in the Global North countries. This research elucidates whether and how parents’ work hours (time) and work schedules (timing) affect children’s physical and mental health and educational outcomes. However, the research is sparse or nonexistant in the Global South. This is an important knowledge gap because whether and how parents’ work hours influence children’s health and development likely depends on the societal acceptance of very long work hours (e.g.,  China), and the national culture pertaining to the role of women in market work and unpaid care and house work.  Countries located in the Global South differ from the Global North in these societal and cultural contexts. In this project we begin to fill in this gap. We envisage several inter-related substudies on this topic in China, using the high quality longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Study (CFPS) spanning 2010-2022 and including children and adolescents aged 0-18.  As a starting point, we investigate the plausible impact of parents’ long work hours on child and adolescent body weight (underweight, overweight, and obesity), the mechanisms and moderators of this impact, taking into consideration a wide array of sociodemographic confounders.