Topic: Migration and Health Outcomes of Left-Behind Elderly
in Rural China
Presenter: Chun
Wing Tse
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, CHLR, Central University of Economics and
Finance
Date:
Oct 30th, 2013
Time:
4:00-5:30PM
Place:
General Room 2, 2nd Floor, Zhongcai Building, CUFE
Abstract:
This paper examines whether migration of adult children adversely affects the
health of the left-behind elderly in rural China. Establishing causal effect is
complicated by the fact that there may be unobserved factors influencing both
child migration and health of the elderly. I address this endogeneity by using
instrumental variable method. The findings show that child migration reduces the
health of the elderly, with both physical health and mental health deteriorating
with migration of adult children. However, the left-behind elderly report lower
difficulty with activities of daily living (ADL). One possible explanation is
that they need to rely on themselves upon child migration, which can drive them
tougher to handle activities of daily
living.