Child Migration and the Health Status of Parents Left Behind

Fengming Chen

No 369, TERG Discussion Papers from Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University

Abstract: I investigate the causal effect of child migration the health status their parents left behind. I mainly focus on the respondents who are more than 50 years old and have only two children to simplify the situations of child migration. Using 2010 wave of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), I employ propensity score matching method to correct the problem of self-selection and evaluate the causal effect of having migrant children on the health status of the elderly left behind. Results show that, in the case of one child migrating for work, child migration has no impact on the health status of their parents. As the substitutive relationship exists among child siblings, the child staying at home would provide more support to their parents and cancel out the impact of child migration. The incentive of free riding for migrant children is very strong, which reduces the benefit of remittances for the elderly.

Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2017-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-hea, nep-mig and nep-tra
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:toh:tergaa:369

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