International Development

The objectives of this paper were to examine the risk of depression and depressive symptoms among Han and minority children and adolescents in rural China, the links between academic performance and depressive symptoms, and the prevalence of these links among specific subgroups. A total of 8392 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students at 105 sample rural schools in eight low-income counties and districts in a prefectural-level city in Southwestern China were randomly selected using a three-step sampling strategy. A total of 51% of the sample were female (SD = 0.50), and the age range was 7 to 19 years (mean = 11.35 years; SD = 1.05). Using the Patient Health Questionnaire 8-item depression scale, the prevalence of depressive symptoms in the sample was assessed, while data on students’ academic performance (standardized math test) and demographic characteristics were also collected. Our results show that the rates of major depression were 19% for Han students, 18% for Tibetan students, and 22% for Yi students; the rates of severe depression were 2% for Han and Tibetan students, and 3% for Yi students. Yi students were at significantly higher risks for major and severe depression than Han students. We conducted multivariate regression and heterogeneous analyses. Academic performance was negatively and significantly correlated to depressive symptoms. Across the whole sample, students with lower math scores, minority students, boys, younger students, and students with migrant parents were most vulnerable to depressive symptoms. The heterogeneous analysis suggests that among poor-performing students, subgroups at higher risk for depression include boys, non-boarding students, and students whose mothers had graduated from high school or above. These findings indicate a need to improve mental health outcomes of rural Han and minority primary school students, targeting academic performance for possible intervention.

Entrepreneurship, Education, and Finance in Asia

What is the effect of offering driver's licenses to undocumented people? Hans Lueders and Micah Mumper offer answers.

A team of experts led by Rose Gottemoeller has produced a new report for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies on non-strategic nuclear warhead policies in Europe, particularly in light of Russia's changing status in the global nuclear community.

A short book about the challenges to liberalism from the right and the left by the bestselling author of The Origins of Political Order.

On May 4th, in front of the Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, Nate Persily, James B. McClatchy Professor Of Law and codirector of the Stanford Cyber Poicy Center called upon the Subcomittee to enact legislation to ensure data relevant to contemporary social problems is unlocked, so researchers can study how big these problems are and seek to solve them.

Academic achievement in middle schools in rural China remains poor for many students. This study examines whether programmes and interventions can improve academic achievement by reviewing rigorous experimental evaluations of nine programmes (11 interventions) on 47,480 rural middle school students in China. The results find none of the interventions improved academic achievement. Moreover, we find no evidence for heterogeneous treatment effects by student gender, age or previous academic achievement. These results may be due in part to the academically-demanding nature of the middle school curriculum, which is applied universally to students with varying levels of cognitive ability.

Published in Lawfare 

Key policy takeaways from Larry Diamond on the future of democracy; Rose Gottemoeller on the West, Russia and nukes; Kathryn Stoner on Putin and Kremlin tensions; Michael McFaul on the West and Putin’s threats; Francis Fukuyama on illiberalism on the left and right; Renée DiResta on LinkedIn and deepfakes; and Michelle Mello on COVID misinformation.

Does the risk of suicide change for women when someone they live with in a previously handgun-free household lawfully acquires a handgun? In this retrospective cohort study of 9.5 million women living in handgun-free homes, the suicide rate increased substantially after a cohabitant acquired a handgun compared with the rate among women whose cohabitants never acquired handguns. The increased rate of suicide was entirely from excess of firearm suicides.The findings suggest that the rate of suicide for women living in handgun-free homes increased significantly after an adult they lived with became a handgun owner.

A Microsimulation Modelling Study

Although children living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) account for 90% of the global population of children, depression, and anxiety among children in LMICs have been understudied. This study examines the prevalence of depression and anxiety and their associations with biological and psychosocial factors among children across China, with a focus on rural areas. We conducted a large-scale epidemiological study of depression and anxiety among 53,421 elementary and junior high school-aged children across China. The results show that 20% are at risk for depression, 6% are at risk for generalized anxiety, and 68% are at risk for at least one type of anxiety. Girls and junior high school students show a higher risk for both depression and anxiety symptoms, while socioeconomic status has varying associations to depression and anxiety symptoms. Our results also show consistent correlations between depression and anxiety symptoms and standard math test scores. These findings underscore the importance of identification, prevention, and treatment of youth depression and anxiety in underdeveloped areas. As China constitutes 15% of the global population of children under age 18, this study offers valuable information to the field of global mental health.

China’s college enrollment system came to a sudden halt as the Cultural Revolution started. Virtually no students were admitted to colleges from 1966 to 1969. We estimate a marked downward shift in college completion rates for the affected cohorts. Using a regression discontinuity approach, we show that these individuals experienced a sizable reduction in labor supply, earnings, and wealth after some 30 years, which can be attributed to the loss of access to college education. Our results also suggest that the affected generation had made efforts to make up for their loss of education later in life.

Using a three-wave longitudinal survey conducted in 815 households in rural Western China, this study aims to examine the association between parental self-perception and early childhood development and the mediation effect of parental investment on the association between parental self-perception and child development when the sample children are at different ages in the early childhood (18–30, 22–36, and 49–65 months). The results demonstrate that parental self-perception are positively and significantly associated with child social-emotional development in all three ages of childhood (from 18 to 65 months). Positive and significant association between parental self-perception and child cognitive development is found in the ages from 22 to 65 months. In addition, findings of this study show that parental investment plays a mediating role in the association between parental self-perception and child cognitive development. The study calls on policymakers to help to strengthen parental self-perception and parental investment related to early childhood development, which should result in better child development in rural China.

Key policy takeaways from Amy Zegart on new strategies in U.S. intelligence; Rose Gottemoeller on maintaining nuclear nonproliferation; Michael McFaul on military support for Ukraine; Gi Wook Shin on South Korea’s presidential election; and the final report from the Virality Project on vaccine misinformation.

We study how an elite college education affects social mobility in China. China provides an interesting context because its college admissions rely mainly on the scores of a centralized exam, a system that has been the subject of intense debate. Combining the data from a large-scale college graduate survey and a nationally representative household survey, we document three main findings. First, attending an elite college can change one's fate. It significantly raises the child's rank in the income distribution. Nevertheless, it does not change the intergenerational relationship in income ranks or guarantee one's entry into an elite occupation or industry. Second, although access to elite colleges increases with parental income, the income gradient is much flatter than in the United States. Third, the score-based cutoff rule in elite college admission is income neutral. Overall, these findings reveal the efficacy and limitations of China's elite colleges in shaping social mobility.

Published in the International Association of Privacy Professionals

A primer on the predictive models used for automated content moderation, known as classifiers, published by the Program on Platform Regulation

Extant research continues to establish the importance of teacher job satisfaction to student performance, yet teacher job satisfaction remains under-investigated in rural China. In this paper, we examine the prevalence and correlates of teacher job satisfaction. Using data from 634 teachers across 120 schools in rural China, we find an alarmingly high prevalence of teacher job dissatisfaction: roughly 21% of rural teachers were less than satisfied with their jobs. In addition, we find that several individual- and school-level characteristics, including being a male teacher, being a homeroom teacher, not having a management role in school, being a middle-aged teacher, and a school’s boarding status, are correlated with teacher job dissatisfaction. In sum, the results demonstrate a need for further research and policy interventions to improve teacher job satisfaction in rural schools.