Elderly parent health and the migration decisions of adult children: Evidence from rural China

Abstract

Recent research has shown that participation in migrant labor markets has led to substantial increases in income for families in rural China. This article addresses the question of how participation is affected by elderly parent health. We find that younger adults are less likely to work as migrants when a parent is ill. Poor health of an elderly parent has less impact on the probability of employment as a migrant when an adult child has siblings who may be available to provide care. We also highlight the potential importance of including information on nonresident family members when studying how parent illness and elder care requirements influence the labor supply decisions of adult children.

How does internal migration affect the emotional health of elderly parents left-behind?

“…This is helpful to account for reverse causality which occurs if children take their migration decision in response to their parents' overall emotional health status. Giles and Mu (2007) find that poor parental health in China significantly reduces the migration probability of adult children. For this approach, we exploit variations in community characteristics that might influence the child's migration decision but are not related directly to parental emotional health.…”

“…In recent years, a considerable amount of research has focussed on the "healthy migrant effect" according to which migrants tend to be healthier as compared to randomly selected non-migrants (Jasso et al 2004;Giles and Mu 2007;Rubalcava et al 2008;Riosmena et al 2012;Farré 2015). The above described sources of individual time-invariant fixed effects can occur if healthy people are more likely to have healthier children and if healthier children have a greater probability to migrate.…”

“…First, an important source of endogeneity is the possible selection of migrants and their families in terms of physical and emotional health. In this context, the so-called healthy migrant effect states that migrants tend to be healthier compared to randomly selected non-migrants (Jasso et al 2004;Giles and Mu 2007;Rubalcava et al 2008;Riosmena et al 2012;Farré 2015). As emotional wellbeing is an important determinant of a person's physical health (Clark and Oswald 2002;Easterlin 2004;Galper et al 2006), we expect migrants to also be positively selected in this regard.…”

The effect of health on urban-settlement intention of rural-urban migrants in China

“…First, the physical health of these rural-urban migrants strongly determines their employment and income (Giles and Mu, 2007;Qin et al, 2015). These socioeconomic factors are not only the main reason that they migrate to the city but also the precondition for them to settle down in cities permanently.…”

Pension Coverage for Parents and Educational Investment in Children: Evidence from Urban China

“…Rural children will forgo migration opportunities and stay in their home villages when one or both of their elderly parents are sick (Giles and Mu 2007).…”