The Risk Of Mental And Physical Health Problems Of Migrant Workers' Left-Behind Parents

This paper aims to examine the effect of adult children's participation in migration labor markets on mental health condition,level of life satisfaction and self-rated health level of the elderly left behind.The research is based on the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS)data,and it applies the Probit model to regress on variables representing for mental health,satisfaction level and physical health status,testing both the psychological and physical factors.We find that,when adult workers migrate to other provinces,their parents have lower probability to be less depressed,while migrating to other districts of the province the elderly live in,there will be no significant influence on both mental and physical health of their parents.The results also show that the elderly from rural area and the west of China are more vulnerable in facing with their children's migrating to other provinces.For robustness,we check the relationship between adult workers migration and health status of their parents based on ordered probit model and propensity score matching.At the end of the paper,we offer the following policy suggestion: firstly,to enhance social security system and social assistance system;secondly,to balance regional economic development,and to introduce preferential policy to rural area and western China;lastly,to organize more activities for the elderly.