Gender Differences in Cognition in China and Reasons for Change over Time: Evidence from CHARLS.
Gender Differences in Cognition in China and Reasons for Change over Time: Evidence from CHARLS.
复制标题
DOI：
10.1016/j.jeoa.2013.11.001
复制
发表时间：
2014-12-01
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
Zhao, Yaohui
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lei, Xiaoyan;Smith, James P;Sun, Xiaoting;Zhao, Yaohui
在本文中，我们使用一个新的中国中老年受访者样本来模拟中国认知能力的性别差异。CHARLS以美国健康与退休调查（HRS）为模型，受访者年龄在45岁及以上，是这个年龄段中国人口的全国代表。在CHARLS中，我们的认知测量依赖于代表成人认知不同维度的两种测量方法——情景记忆和完整的精神状态。我们将这些认知测量与成年期的成人健康和SES结果联系起来。我们发现，在这几代中国人中，巨大的性别教育差异减轻了对女性不利的认知差异。这些认知上的性别差异尤其集中在样本中年龄较大的群体和较贫穷的社区。我们还调查了社区的历史、地理和文化特征，以了解它们如何影响认知。经济发展和环境改善，如有电、人均工资和绿色覆盖率的提高，通常有助于提高认知能力。女性更多地受益于发展成果——电力和绿色覆盖率的增长有利于减少女性在认知上的劣势。
In this paper, we model gender differences in cognitive ability in China using a new sample of middle-aged and older Chinese respondents. Modeled after the American Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), CHARLS respondents are 45 years and older and are nationally representative of the Chinese population in this age span. Our measures of cognition in CHARLS rely on two measures that proxy for different dimensions of adult cognition—episodic memory and intact mental status. We relate these cognitive measures to adult health and SES outcomes during the adult years. We find large cognitive differences to the detriment of women that were mitigated by large gender differences in education among these generations of Chinese people. These gender differences in cognition are especially concentrated in the older age groups and poorer communities within the sample. We also investigated historical, geographical, and cultural characteristics of communities to understand how they impact cognition. Economic development and environmental improvement such as having electricity, increases in wage per capita and green coverage ratio generally contribute to higher cognition ability. Women benefit more from the fruits of development –electricity and growth of green coverage ratio are conducive to lessening female disadvantage in cognition.