Childhood migration experience and adult health: evidence from China’s rural migrants

Abstract

Background Place of residence plays an influential role in shaping individual development, and studies have established links between Childhood migration experience (CME) and health outcomes through maturity. Over the past three decades, China has undergone one of the largest rural-to-urban migrations, however, little is known about the effect of CME on rural migrants’ adult health in China. Methods Data from 7035 members of the 2016 and 2018 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey were analyzed. CME was measured by whether the place of residence and place of birth changed at the age of 14 years. Three measures of health (self-assessed health, BMI, and mental health scale) were obtained. Causal inferential analysis was performed, using the Probit model, the OLS model and the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method, to explore the impact of CME on the adult health of rural migrants. Results Overall, compared to individuals who did not migrate in childhood, the probability of reporting “very unhealthy”, “rather unhealthy”, and “fair” in the self-assessed health of the rural migrants with CME decreased by 0.23%, 1.55%, and 5.53%, the probability of reporting “healthy” and “very healthy” increased by 1.94% and 5.38%, the probability of BMI within the normal range was higher by 7.32%, and the mental health test scores were 0.2591 points higher significantly. Furthermore, in comparison with childhood non-migration, both cross-county and cross-city migration promoted the health status of rural migrants, but the positive effect of cross-province migration was not significant; from the gender perspective, CME could more dramatically improve rural women’s adult health than men, especially in mental health. Conclusion CME can significantly improve adult health, including physical and mental health, and the positive effect is more obvious among women, helping to reduce gender differences in health. For the migration distance, attention can be focused on the long-distance migrating individuals, who should get more support.