China’s Double Reduction Policy and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: Longitudinal Evidence on Afterschool Activity Reallocation

Abstract Background China’s Double Reduction policy was implemented starting in the autumn 2021 school term and reorganized homework, school-provided after-school services, and off-campus tutoring for compulsory education students. Evidence from a long-standing household panel with repeated measurements of depressive symptoms and a contemporaneous upper-secondary comparison remains limited. Upper secondary students were outside the homework and school service provisions of compulsory education, although related governance was extended to off-campus subject tutoring for upper secondary students.