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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亚洲的父母幸福与社会政策。

摘要东亚和南亚的人们普遍认为，生育孩子可以使一个人的生活充实。然而，在过去的五十年中，亚洲的现代化伴随着出生率的显着下降，其水平甚至低于大多数西方国家。先前对西方国家的研究表明，父母对时间的要求和经济压力以及当前僵化的就业做法，导致父母成本高昂，并降低了生育孩子的情感回报。这项研究调查了东亚和南亚父母和没有子女的人的幸福，以及社会政策是否可以改善父母的幸福。我们使用来自世界价值和亚洲晴雨表调查的10个亚洲国家/地区的个人数据，在控制了相关的社会人口统计学差异之后，没有哪个国家的父母的幸福感明显高于非父母。多层模型显示，带薪年假，带薪产假和育儿假以及灵活的工作时间表以及全面的政策指数有助于缓解各国父母与非父母之间的幸福感差距，特别是工作灵活性和家庭友善政策对非父母的健康没有明显的负面影响。