Caregiving Style and Child Health: A Perspective on Overweight

Can formal care replace traditional family care and be more beneficial to children's health than informal care? Based on the data from 4708 children aged 0–12 in China, this paper uses the instrumental variables to explore the impact of caregiving style on children's health from the perspective on overweight. The IV results show that children in institutional care are on average 66.4% less likely to be overweight compared to parental care and grandparental care (p < 0.05). The reason is that children who receive formal care have healthier lifestyle habits, such as more exercise and early bedtime. Moreover, grandparental care was the worst outcome. These findings imply that social care is not only better for childbirth, but also for child development. Compared to previous studies, this study used instrumental variables to address the mutual causation endogeneity, making the results more reliable. By telling Chinese stories, it provides reference for Eastern countries with similar cultures. JEL：J13