Parental migration and anemia status of children in China

Previous literature on parental migration and children's health outcomes mainly focuses on subjective measures and often omits the selectivity issue. Taking advantage of a unique nationally representative longitudinal dataset from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, this paper uses anemia status as an objective measure of children's health outcomes and examines the different effects of parents' current migration status, migration history, and migration duration. The results show that father's migration does not harm children's physical health, especially for children in rural areas, for whom father's migration decreases the likelihood of being anemic; while mother's migration increases the likelihood of being anemic. Importantly, children with return migrant mothers are less likely to experience anemia. We also find that the longer the father migrated, the better the child's health, but mother's longer migration duration is more detrimental. Our findings highlight the gender dimension in the migration story and indicate that policymakers should encourage the return migration of migrant mothers.