The Impact of Adult Child Migration on the Health of Elderly Parents Left Behind in China

In this paper, we investigate the impact of adult child migration on the health of elderly parents left behind in the context of China. To control the potential endogeneity problem of migration, we use a system generalized method of moments estimator to estimate a dynamic panel data model. We have three key findings. First, as a whole, adult child migration has positive effects on the physical health and negative effects on the mental health of the elderly parents left behind. Secondly, the patterns of children’s migration matter to the health of parents. A higher percentage of children or more children that migrated out has stronger effects on the health of elderly parents left behind. Finally, while we do not find that the effects are systematically different between rural and urban areas and between genders, we find heterogeneous effects across age groups.