Migration and children's welfare in China:the schooling and health of children left behind

Ming-Hsuan Lee* ()
Additional contact information
Ming-Hsuan Lee*: California State University - East Bay, USA

Journal of Developing Areas, 2011, vol. 44, issue 2, 165-182

Abstract: Although the effect of the migration process on the family has been extensively studied, much less attention has been given to the impact of migration on children, especially those children who are left behind. Children whose parents have migrated are usually looked after by members of their extended family. In this paper, we compare the well-being of children who live in rural Chinese households in which the parents either have or have not migrated, and we then examine the extent to which parental migration affects children's welfare (i.e., schooling and health conditions). Our findings show that, compared to children whose parents have migrated, children whose parents have not migrated were better off in terms of school enrollment and years of schooling. Meanwhile, children of migrant parents generally demanded more recognition from parents and peers and were more likely to develop a smoking habit. Regarding children's health, this paper also identifies some negative impacts of parental migration on children's receiving of health care and on the general quality of their health; however, the extent was not as substantial as in the case of schooling. Overall, our findings suggest that parental absence due to labor migration affected children's mental and, to a lesser extent, physical well-being. The results also confirm the common observation that the care provided by the extended family is often limited to tangible help and rarely involves spiritual inspiration.

Keywords: Labor migration; Children's Health; Children's Schooling; Children Left Behind (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I00 J61 O18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_developing_areas/v044/44.2.lee.html

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jda:journl:vol.44:year:2011:issue2:pp:165-182

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Developing Areas from Tennessee State University, College of Business Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Abu N.M. Wahid ().