What Makes a Difference to Children's Health in Rural China? Parental Migration, Remittances, and Social Support

Abstract:

China is undergoing a remarkably large scale of rural-to-urban migration. In many cases this migration is individual rather than familial due to a variety of constraints, causing widespread separate living arrangements. Guided by an inquiry about the impacts of parental migration on children’s physical and mental health in rural China, the present study asks the following question: what roles do remittances and social support play in left-behind children’s health outcomes? The findings highlight the disadvantaged situation experienced by children whose both parents are migrants and point to the promising countervailing functions of remittances and family support in protecting these children from mental health decline. However, friend support does not seem helpful in the absence of parent(s), and a larger number of good friends even increase the risk of getting sick. Interestingly, my analysis also reveals a possible nonmonetary effect of remittances level, which may reflect a family’s economic reliance on emigration and bring extra stress to the members remaining at home.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the journal editor, Xiaogang Wu, and the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions and critical input. I also thank Zoya Gubernskaya, Joanne Kaufman, Scott South, and Katherine Trent for their helpful advice.

About the Author

Zequn Tang is a PhD student at the State University of New York at Albany.

Notes

“‘Be sick’ means physically uncomfortable and receiving treatment by taking medicine or other methods” (2010 Baseline Questionnaire: 76).

The information on the migration of a family member is originally given in the family dataset. China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) recoded it in the child dataset by linking the family members and identifying migrant parents.