Yu Y, Liu C, Chen K, Li S. Parental migration and children's dietary diversity at home: Evidence from rural China.
PLoS One 2023;
18:e0291041. [PMID:
38060621 PMCID:
PMC10703207 DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0291041]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/08/2022] [Accepted: 08/21/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
There is a growing literature documenting the link between parental migration and children's health. However, few studies have explained the underlying mechanism of this observed relationship. This paper examines the effect of parental migration on children's health through dietary diversity, using survey data collected in a less developed prefecture in South Central China in 2018. To overcome the potential endogeneity of parental migration, we instrument parental migration with the proportion of households with migrated labor force at the village level, and find that parental migration reduces children's dietary diversity at home. Moreover, we provide suggestive evidence that the reduction in dietary diversity may attribute to significant negative separation effects whereas minimal positive income effects in migrant-sending households. This study highlights the negative effects of labor migration on the next generation's nutrition. In those developing countries with a high prevalence of labor migration, policies that facilitate access to dietary diversity of those left-behind children are warranted.
Collapse