ABSTRACT People in East and South Asia widely believe that having children brings fulfilment to an individual’s life. However, over the past fifty years, modernisation in Asia has been accompanied by a remarkable drop in birth rates to a level even lower than most western countries. Prior research on western nations has shown that the time demands and financial stresses of parenthood, as well as current inflexible employment practices, contribute to the high cost of parenthood and discount the emotional rewards of having children. This study investigates the happiness of parents and childless individuals in East and South Asia, and whether social policies can improve parental happiness. We use individual-level data in 10 Asian countries from the World Values and the Asian Barometer Surveys, and find no country where parents report significantly greater happiness than non-parents after controlling for relevant sociodemographic differences. Multilevel models show that paid annual leave, paid maternity and parental leave, and flexible working schedules as well as a comprehensive policy index help alleviate the disparity in happiness between parents and non-parents across countries, in particular work flexibility, while family-friendly policies have no noticeable negative effects on non-parents’ wellbeing.

中文翻译：

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亚洲父母幸福与社会政策。


摘要 东亚和南亚人民普遍认为，生孩子可以给个人的生活带来满足。然而，在过去的五十年里，亚洲的现代化伴随着出生率的显着下降，甚至低于大多数西方国家的水平。此前对西方国家的研究表明，为人父母的时间要求和经济压力，以及当前不灵活的就业实践，导致了为人父母的高昂成本，并削弱了生孩子的情感回报。本研究调查了东亚和南亚父母和无子女个人的幸福感，以及社会政策是否可以提高父母的幸福感。我们使用了世界价值观和亚洲晴雨表调查中 10 个亚洲国家的个人层面数据，发现在控制相关的社会人口统计学差异后，没有哪个国家的父母比非父母的幸福感显着更高。多层次模型表明，带薪年假、带薪产假和育儿假、灵活的工作时间以及综合政策指数有助于缩小各国父母与非父母之间的幸福差距，特别是工作灵活性和家庭友好型政策对非父母的福祉没有明显的负面影响。