Determinants of Children’s Growth in Height at the Individual, Family, and Community Level: The Case for Contemporary China

Shige Song, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

The central objective of the proposed research is to identify major determinants of children’s growth in height in contemporary China. First of all, I compare the relative importance between the effect of urban-rural divide and the effect of regional disparity on children’s growth in height. Second, I identify major determinants of children’s growth at the individual, family, and community level: 1) what are the effects of parental son preferences on differential growth trajectory of male and female children; 2) are there urban-rural differences in the effect of son preferences on children’s growth and; 3) how does the one-child-per-couple policy influence the effect of parental son preferences on children’s growth? I will use data from the “China Health and Nutrition Survey” (CHNS), which is a panel research with multistage clustered sample of 3,800 households. I will use the currently available four panels (1989, 1991, 1993, and 1997) to estimate a set of multilevel growth models.