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Migration, Family Arrangement, and Children’s Health in China

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Chinese Cities in the 21st Century

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Abstract

With unprecedented migration taking place in China, millions of children are profoundly affected. Using a sample of 916 children (aged 5–18) of migrants and the life course perspective, this chapter examines the impact of parental migration on children’s health. Results show that migration has a complex impact on children’s health. While migrating to cities itself does not benefit children, poor housing conditions in cities have a negative impact on their health. The timing of parental migration is important, as preschoolers migrating with parents and teenagers left behind by parents have significantly worse health than others. Migration also has a gendered effect, as teenage boys benefit from migrating to cities while suffer from being left behind when compared to teenage girls.

Author Acknowledgments: This research was funded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (grant number: R03HD074671), and Faculty Research Development Award of SUNY Albany (grant number: 1101833). This research was published in Child Development, first online in 2016, and in print in 2018, Vol. 89 No. 2: e74–e90. Some details and tables were deleted to better suit the book chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Endogeneity between dependent variable “health” and key independent variable “family arrangement” was tested through instrumental variables, and the results show that there is no endogeneity issue in this case. See original paper for details and test results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA

    Youqin Huang

  2. Center for Population Dynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Qian Song

  3. Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

    Ran Tao

  4. Department of Sociology, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA

    Zai Liang

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  1. University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA

    Youqin Huang

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Huang, Y., Song, Q., Tao, R., Liang, Z. (2020). Migration, Family Arrangement, and Children’s Health in China. In: Huang, Y. (eds) Chinese Cities in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34780-2_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34780-2_8

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