Premium
Exports and left‐behind children : Empirical evidence from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey
Author(s) -
Chen Zexing,
Li Bing,
Li Tao
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
review of international economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.513
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1467-9396
pISSN - 0965-7576
DOI - 10.1111/roie.12416
Subject(s) - endogeneity , china , instrumental variable , demographic economics , left behind , survey data collection , economics , robustness (evolution) , rural area , construct (python library) , labour economics , geography , political science , econometrics , psychology , biochemistry , statistics , chemistry , mathematics , archaeology , law , computer science , mental health , gene , programming language , psychotherapist
The opportunity for jobs and high wages induced by exports have attracted rural laborers in China to work in the cities temporarily, and some parents must leave behind their children in rural areas, called left‐behind children (LBC). Notably, the cause of LBC has not been investigated carefully. In this study, we combine the 2010 to 2015 Chinese trade data with the data from the 2010 to 2015 China Migrants Dynamic Survey(CMDS) to identify LBC based on the young children of migrants not living with their parents in the cities, and empirically test the effects of exports on LBC. The results show that under the same income level and other circumstances, the increase in export dependency significantly increases the probability of the migrants’ young children becoming LBC. We construct an instrumental variable to manage the potential endogeneity problems and conduct many other robustness checks, and all the results are consistent. We also examine the heterogeneous effects of exports on LBC and observe that migrants with low income, low education, rural hukou (area of origin) status, and in manufacturing sectors are more vulnerable to exports.Key Words: Exports; Internal Migration; Left‐behind children