Seminar Vol. 124

Title: Sons or Daughters? The Impact of Children’s Migration on the Health and Well-being of Parents Left Behind

Speaker: Chuhong Wang, University of Southampton

Time: December 27th, 2018 13:30–15:00

Venue: Conference Room 106B, Zhonghui Building (IESR, JNU College of Economics)

About the speaker:

Chuhong Wang is a Research Fellow at ESRC Centre for Population Change (CPC) at the University of Southampton. She received PhD in Economics from the University of Southampton in 2017. Her research interests are health economics, economics of migration and labour economics, with a particular focus on migration and its economic and social effects, the impact of migration on those left behind in sending areas, as well as post-study migration decisions of international students.

Abstract:

We study the impact of adult children’s internal migration on the health and subjective well-being of elderly parents left behind, distinguishing between the genders of the migrant children. To overcome migration endogeneity, we exploit novel and exogenous variation in children’s astrological characteristics and apply instrumental variables methods. We find a positive effect of the migration of daughters on parents’ health and life satisfaction, but no such beneficial effects when sons migrate. We further explore the mechanism through which this gender-biased migration effect may arise. Our findings have important implications for regions and countries that have high rates of female emigration.