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Childlessness and health in middle age and older adulthood: Evidence from Singapore

Christine Ho et al.

European Economic Review2026https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2026.105279article
AJG 3ABDC A*
Weight
0.50

Abstract

Health and well-being in mature adulthood are important concerns given the prevalence of individuals aging without children. We exploit two new instruments for childlessness—infertility and the number of childless siblings—and condition our analyses on a rich set of covariates including childhood health and financial status, to investigate the causal relationship between childlessness and health in middle age and older adulthood. Using a nationwide dataset of 1500 Singaporeans aged 50 and above, we show that OLS underestimates the negative effects of childlessness on health. We find that childlessness leads to higher likelihood of poorer self-reported health and mental distress. The results are robust to a battery of sensitivity analyses, including bounding the effects by relaxing the exclusion restrictions.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2026.105279

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@article{christine2026,
  title        = {{Childlessness and health in middle age and older adulthood: Evidence from Singapore}},
  author       = {Christine Ho et al.},
  journal      = {European Economic Review},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2026.105279},
}

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Childlessness and health in middle age and older adulthood: Evidence from Singapore

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.