Birth without raising: Impact of labor migration on the medical benefits for migrant children in China

Abstract

The relationship between labor migration and the medical benefits of migrant children (MC) has long been a focus of empirical research. Based on the dynamic monitoring data of the migrant population in Hubei Province by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China in 2014 and the characteristic data of prefecture-level cities, this paper studies the impact of labor migration on the medical benefits of MC. The major findings of this paper are that in China, due to the huge spatial differences in medical services, the migration of labor to urban areas with better public services helps to improve the medical benefits of women during pregnancy and lying-in period, and at the same time significantly enhances the medical benefits of the MC. In contrast, due to the relative lag of the reform in social security system such as household registration and medical care, in the long run, labor migration is not conducive to the improvement of the medical benefits of MC. Based on the above findings, this paper suggests that in the short-term, more public resources should be allocated to the urban medical supply, especially at the primary level, and in the longterm, the adjustment of public policies should be aimed at eliminating urban-rural differences. K E Y W O R D S labor migration, medical benefits, migrant children, urban-rural division [Correction added on 5 May 2020 after first online publication: in Funding Information field, the last funding details have been corrected.] 810 | LUO et aL.

The geography of migrant workers' income in China: Evidence from a migrants dynamic survey in 2017

“…Fourth, the public social services of migrant workers in inflow cities hurts their income, which might be caused by the insufficient capacities of social services. The “conflict” between labor migration and access to public services is a dilemma China faces (Luo et al., 2020). There is no central agency responsible for planning, managing, and supervising social services for migrants.…”