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May 16, 2011 - Mar 31, 2013

Impact of parental rural-to-urban migration on children’s human capital formation in China

Leader

This project aims to investigate how parental migration affects children’s human capital formation in China. Recently, China has become one of the sources of the world’s economic growth. The rapid industrialization in the country has been supported by the massive movement of labor from rural to urban areas. However, there is a growing concern that this rural-to-urban migration can affect the human capital formation of the children of migrants. Many of children who are left behind in rural areas miss care and supervision by their parents, and attend boarding school with limited sanitary and supervising facilities. Children who move to cities with their parents face restrictions in accessing public facilities such as schools and hospitals. Since they are not registered as urban residents, they cannot use those facilities, or would have to pay very high fees. If parental migration affects the formation of human capital of the children, it is likely to influence not only their current welfare, but also change the quality of labor force in the future. Previous studies indicate that children’s human capital formation is highly correlated with lifetime earnings, crime rates, and other long-term outcomes. In order to utilize rural-urban migration for further development without negative side effects on the future generation, public interventions are likely to be necessary. How to effectively utilize migration for growth is a common issue for emerging economics, and thus an issue which ultimately impacts on the global economic growth. This project will provide evidence which facilitates the formation of public policy on migration for emerging economics. In particular, the following two research questions will be addressed: (1) Do rural children whose parents migrated to cities show differential health status and educational achievements compared to rural children whose parents stay in rural areas? (2) Do rural children who migrated to cities with their parents show differential health status and educational achievements compared to rural children whose parents stay in rural areas?