Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2013, 59(10):467-477 | DOI: 10.17221/19/2013-AGRICECON

Migration decisions of parents and the nutrition intakes of children left at home in rural ChinaOriginal Paper

Manxiu NING¹, Hung-Hao CHANG²

¹ School of Public Administration, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China

² Department of Agricultural Economics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Using an individual-level dataset drawn from the China Health and Nutrition Survey in 2000, 2004, 2006, and 2009, this paper investigated whether the parental labour migration is associated with deficiencies in the nutrition intakes of children left at home in the rural area. The results show that the parental migration increases the probability of deficiency in the energy and protein intake of children left at home. Although several studies have pointed out that the parental remittances can increase the economic well-being of their children at home, this study points to an undesired cost of the parental migration. Governments should establish effective policies to promote the benefits of migration while minimizing the potential costs. In particular, specific social welfare programs targeting on children in the rural area can be designed to insecure the nutritional health of children left at home in the rural area.

Keywords: China Health and Nutrition Survey, health and nutrition, labor supply, parental migration

Published: October 31, 2013  Show citation