中国和印度的乡-城迁移及儿童医疗保健的性别差异

Rural-Urban Migration and Gender Disparities in Child Healthcare in China and India

本文评价了中国和印度的乡-城迁移对两国儿童使用医疗保健的性别差异的影响。许多研究表明,这两个国家包括在卫生投资方面,普遍存在对女孩的歧视,这造成了众所周知的亚洲"失踪"妇女这一问题。但对中国和印度正在发生的大规模乡-城迁移是如何影响对女孩的歧视,我们还不是很清楚。迁移通常被认为是对儿童健康有积极影响的,因为这能让他们用上更好的医疗设施,但这对于男孩和女孩来说并不是同样有益。基于对深圳(中国)和孟买(印度)农村移民家庭的14个月的实地调查,本文认为,虽然迁移改善了医疗保健,但短期内儿童疾病治疗中的性别差异可能会加大而不是减小,因为资源集中在男孩的疾病治疗上。此外,乡-城迁移也不一定会使儿童享受更好的医疗保健,即使对男孩也如此。某些形式的迁移实际上可能对儿童健康产生负面影响。由于这两个原因,大规模农村向城市迁移的发展战略不应被视为短期内解决儿童健康中的性别不平等问题的方法。

This article assesses the impact of rural-urban migration on gender disparities in children＇s access to healthcare in China and India. Based on 14 months of fieldwork with rural migrant families in Shenzhen （ China） and Mumbai （ India）,this article argues that where migration improves access to healthcare, it may increase rather than decrease the gender gap in treatment of child illness in the short term,as resources are concentrated on the treatment of sons. Furthermore, it is not the case that rural-urban migration necessarily leads to better access to healthcare even for sons： some forms of migration may actually have an overall negative effect on child health outcomes. For these two reasons, development strategies focusing on large-scale rural- urban migration should not be seen as a short-term solution to problems of gender inequity in child health.