Child education-induced migration and its impact on the economic behaviors of migrated households in China

ABSTRACT

Using the 2011–2013 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, this paper utilizes the quarter of the year in which a child was born as an instrumental variable to measure child education shock and explores its impact on migrated households. We only find significant education-induced migration among boys, which we attribute to son preference in China. Due to child education-induced migration, the per capita household consumption increases by 56.7%, the savings rate decreases by 40.3%, and remittances sent home decline by about 1.3 monthly household incomes, however, there are no effects on income, food consumption, and house rent. After exploring the mechanisms underlying child education-induced migration, we find that children migrate with their parents are less likely to pursue a better education in urban areas. Because of the closure and consolidation of rural primary schools, children are forced to migrate due to their education needs. The accessibility of primary schools in urban areas is also responsible for migration decisions regarding children. This paper facilitates understanding of how Hukou influences gender inequality in China. We also provide evidence to show that the segregation of the education system through Hukou is a possible explanation for the low consumption rate of migrants.

KEYWORDS:

• Education-Induced migration
• son preference
• economic behaviours
• Hukou

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• O15
• I28
• D14

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 71804142; 72074178), the Start-up Fund for Young Talent Support Plan (grant number 7121182501), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (grant number 2722022BY005). The authors thank AiMi Academic Services (www.aimieditor.com) for the English language editing and review services. We also thank the editor, Mark Taylor, and one anonymous referee for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors, and all errors are their own.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2022.2094328.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declarations of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Notes

¹ http://www.nhc.gov.cn/wjw/xwdt/201812/a32a43b225a740c4bff8f2168b0e9688.shtml.

² Due to the strict criteria for acquiring the local Hukou in big cities, migrants will return to rural or county areas when they are aged.

³ The data is available on the official website: http://www.chinaldrk.org.cn/wjw/#/home.

⁴ Some rural households can have a “One-and-a-Half-Birth” or “Two-Birth” quota, which depends on the provinces they live in. And minority groups face less restriction of the fertility policy. For expositional ease, we still call the fertility policy OCP.

⁵ As one anonymous referee has highlighted that the younger and elder grandparents may have opposite effects on households. And grandparents’ physical conditions also have impact on households, which should be included in the model specification. Unfortunately, this information is unavailable in our data. We, however, use number and age of grandparents as proxies for the ability to provide care-giving for their grandchildren. As another robustness check, we also drop the dummies indicating of grandparents’ number and age as well as other covariates. Our main results remain there, suggesting that our key findings are not biased by omitted variable problem (Altonji, Elder, and Taber 2005).

⁶ The data are available in China Education Expenditure Statistical Yearbook, 2012–2014.

⁷ http://old.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_406/200412/4730.html.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [71804142,72074178]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law [2722022BY005]; Start-up Fund for Young Talent Support Plan [7121182501]