Does children’s marriage matter for parents' mental health？Evidence from China

How to effectively alleviate mental disorders among elderly individuals is an important issue. Children are important financial and spiritual supporters of parents. However, whether there are upward spillovers from children to parents remains understudied. Using the instrumental variable (IV) method and data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this paper estimates the causal effect of children's marriage on the mental health of older parents. The IV estimation results demonstrate that having unmarried children is associated with a significant deterioration in parental mental health, especially in older, less educated, poor and male groups. Further evidence suggests that having unmarried children leads to significant changes in parents' economic behaviors, including labor supply, consumption, and savings; this indicates that parents are more likely to actively respond to their children’s unmarried status by increasing labor supply, reducing consumption and increasing savings rather than by engaging in negative behaviors.