Abstract
This paper examines how left-behind children influence return migration in China. We first present a simple model that incorporates economic and non-economic motives for migration duration (or intentions to return). Based on Dustmann (2003b), the parent is assumed to be altruistic and to care about the prospects of her left-behind children. We then propose two complementary empirical tests based on an original dataset from a rural household survey carried out in Wuwei County (Anhui province, China) in fall 2008. We first use a discrete-time proportional hazard model to estimate the determinants of migration duration for both on-going migrants with incomplete length of duration and return migrants with complete length of duration. Second, we apply a binary Probit model to study the return intentions of on-going migrants. Both models find consistent results regarding the role of left-behind children as a significant motive for return. First, left-behind children are found to pull their parents back to the village, the effect being stronger for pre-school children. Second, sons are found to play a more important role than daughters in reducing migration duration.
Highlights
Economic development is often combined with the transfer of a large proportion of workers from the rural-based traditional agricultural sector to the urban industrial sector
There are genderbased differences regarding the migrant parent: sons in primary school are a strong motivation for a longer length of stay of their migrant father, whereas grandparents appear as potential substitutes for mothers in taking care of left-behind children
This paper contributes to the understanding of migration dynamics within China by exploring the determinants of the spell of rural-to-urban migration and by highlighting the cost of leaving behind children
Summary
Economic development is often combined with the transfer of a large proportion of workers from the rural-based traditional agricultural sector to the urban industrial sector. Because we are interested in school-aged or pre-school children in the home village, we assume that the child does not work in the second period Given these two assumptions, the proposed model captures the situation of a family unit composed of a worker engaged in migration (the parent migrant) and a left-behind child. Assuming no migrant parent location preference in her own consumption (aR = aM), the decision to return for an altruistic parent reduces to a comparison of the loss in utility due to lower income (and, possibly, a reduction in education opportunities) with the gain in utility thanks to a better-off child (through better quality day-to-day care, for instance). The empirical analysis presented below aims to estimate this reduced-form relationship by focusing on the migrants’ length of stay in cities
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