Abstract Health matters for marital outcomes, but health information may remain concealed until marriage. Our matching model, which incorporates socioeconomic status (SES) and health, predicts that the removal of health information should shift sorting toward SES, potentially reducing child health and welfare, particularly for those with low SES. We empirically examine this in the context of rural China, following the repeal of compulsory premarital health examinations (PHE). Our difference-in-differences estimation, which compares provinces with varying levels of exposure based on pre-policy PHE rates, confirms a larger shift in sorting patterns in provinces with higher treatment intensity. The decrease in health-based assortative matching negatively affects child health outcomes, which is followed by a decline in postmarital subjective well-being. Women and low-SES individuals experience larger losses than their counterparts within the same highly affected provinces, highlighting persistent gender and socioeconomic disparities.
Han et al. (Wed,) studied this question.