子女外出务工对农村中老年人健康的影响——基于中国健康与养老追踪调查数据的实证分析

The Impact of Children's Migration for Work on the Health of Rural Left-Behind Middle-aged and Elderly People—Based on China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study Data

本文基于2011年中国健康与养老追踪调查数据,研究子女外出务工对农村中老年人健康的影响。使用自评健康状况测量生理健康,使用抑郁指数测量心理健康,Probit估计结果显示,子女外出务工促进了农村中老年人生理健康和心理健康水平。此外,选取“村庄外出务工人口比例”和“家庭子女中男性比例”作为子女外出务工的工具变量,采用两阶段最小二乘法进行了内生性检验,结果显示,子女外出务工对农村中老年人的生理健康和心理健康仍呈显著的正向影响。通过采用替换子女外出务工和健康测量指标的方式,本文进一步验证了上述结果的稳健性。在全面实施“健康中国”和“乡村振兴”国家战略背景下,一方面应加大对农村地区基础教育的投入,另一方面应重视职业技能培训,从长期和短期提升农村劳动力的人力资本,使其能够“走出去”且高质量就业,为提高农村中老年人健康水平发挥积极作用。

Using the 2011 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS)data,this paper studies the impact of children's migration for work on the health of rural left-behind middle-aged and elderly people.The self-rated health status is used to measure physical health,while the depression index is used to measure mental health.The Probit model estimation results show that migrant children working in other areas have promoted the physical and mental health level of rural middle-aged and elderly people.In addition,this paper selects"the ratio of migrant workers in villages"and"ratio of males in family children"as instrumental variables for children's migration for work,and uses the two-stage least squares method to perform endogenous tests.The results indicate that children's migration for work still have a significant positive impact on the physical and mental health of rural middle-aged and elderly people.This paper uses the method of replacing children's migration for work and health measurement indicators to further verify the robustness of the above results.In the context of the comprehensive implementation of"Healthy China initiative"and"the rural vitalization strategy",it is necessary to increase investment in basic education in rural areas on the one hand and attach importance to vocational skills training to improve the human capital of rural labor forces in the long and short term.Not only can they"go global"but also get high-quality employment,which play a positive role in promoting the health of their middle-aged and elderly parents.