International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume 15, Issue 6, 2018

Parental migration and left-behind children’s depressive symptoms: Estimation based on a nationally-representative panel dataset (Article) (Open Access)

Zhou M. , Sun X. , Huang L.* , Zhang G. , Kenny K. , Xue H. , Auden E. , Rozelle S.
  • a College of Economics and Management, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110866, China
  • b College of Economics and Management, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110866, China
  • c College of Economics and Management, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110866, China
  • d School of Business, Liaoning University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110031, China
  • e Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, United States
  • f School of Economics and Management, Northwest University, Xi’an, Shanxi 710069, China, Center for Experimental Economics in Education, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, Shanxi 710127, China
  • g Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, United States, Center for Experimental Economics in Education, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, Shanxi 710127, China
  • h Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, United States

Abstract

China’s rapid urbanization in the past several decades have been accompanied by rural labor migration. An important question that has emerged is whether rural labor migration has a positive or negative impact on the depressive symptoms of children left behind in the countryside by their migrating parents. This paper uses a nationally representative panel dataset to investigate whether parental migration impacts the prevalence of depressive symptoms among left-behind children in China. Using DID and PSM-DID methods, our results show that parental migration significantly increases the depression scores of 10 and 11-year-old children by 2 points using the CES-D depression scale. Furthermore, we also find that the negative effect of decreased parental care is stronger than the positive effect of increased income in terms of determining the depressive symptoms status of children in rural China. © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Author Keywords

Human capital Left-behind children PSM-DID Depressive symptoms

Index Keywords

Parents emotional deprivation China clinical outcome depression rural area longitudinal study Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale mental health human Longitudinal Studies statistics and numerical data rural population controlled study health status panel data income school child Humans health impact Adolescent male labor migration female Child Welfare prevalence Article experience disease prevalence data set household income migration Emigration and Immigration parental behavior attitude to health parental care child parent relation human capital Child
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85047532638&doi=10.3390%2fijerph15061069&partnerID=40&md5=61bbb7df98c78c96b8052ffa6f9a96e2
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph15061069
ISSN: 16617827
Cited by: 7
Original Language: English