Has Rural-Urban Migration Promoted the Health of Chinese Migrant Workers?

Cuihong Long, Jiajun Han and Yong Liu
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Cuihong Long: School of Economics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
Jiajun Han: School of Economics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
Yong Liu: School of Economics, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: The relationship between health and migration has always been an important theme in immigration research. This research develops a new approach to test the healthy migrant hypothesis and the salmon bias hypothesis in China by examining an interaction term combining agricultural hukou and migrant status, non-agricultural employment history, and subsequent area of residence. Based on two Chinese micro-databases, CGSS 2015 and Harmonized CHARLS, we conducted an empirical test on the relationship between migration and health. Our empirical evidence suggests that the initial health advantage among Chinese rural migrant workers was largely due to self-selection rather than migration effects. After controlling for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, this advantage disappeared. After their health deteriorated, migrant workers returned to their original location. This could exacerbate the contradiction between the allocation of medical resources and the demand in rural and urban China, further intensifying the already widening health status gap between rural and urban residents.

Keywords: migration; health; urbanization; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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