China introduced its stringent family planning policies in the early 1970 s, known as the “Later, Longer, Fewer” policies, and followed it with the One-Child Policy in 1979. The number of children born to Chinese parents significantly decreased from 5.7 in the late 1960 s to 2.5 in 1988. In Chen and Fang (2021), we show that family planning policies have drastically different effects on older parents’ physical and mental well-being. Whereas parents more exposed to the family planning policies consume more and enjoy slightly better physical health status when they enter their old age, they report more severe depression symptoms. In this paper, we present the heterogeneity of mental health across demographics and socioeconomic status. We pay particular attention to the role of children. Our findings indicate that parents with no or only one child experience faster deterioration in mental health status as they age. This pattern is observed only among older people who are not living with children. Our findings highlight the role of family support for the mental health status among older Chinese.
