The long-run and intergenerational impact of early exposure to the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–61 on mental health

Tan, Chih Ming; Zhang, Xiaobo; and Zhang, Xin. 2025. The long-run and intergenerational impact of early exposure to the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–61 on mental health. Economics and Human Biology 56(February 2025): 101461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101461

We study the effects of early exposure to the Great Chinese Famine on the mental health and subjective well-being of survivors as well as their offspring using data from the 2010 and 2014 waves of the China Family Panel Studies. Our analysis focuses on K6 scores, severe mental illness, and life dissatisfaction. We find that early exposure to the famine has impaired the mental health outcomes of women, but not men (i.e., the first generation). For the second generation, negative effects only show up among the sons of male famine survivors. Some preliminary evidence suggests that the mechanism for such transmission may have to do with the cultural son preference.