An eye for an eye? childhood left-behind experience and old-age support to parents

This article investigates the impact of childhood left-behind experience on intergenerational upward support in China. By utilizing the 2010 and 2016 waves of the China Family Panel Studies data, we find that childhood left-behind experience has a negative and significant effect on old-age support to parents. This effect remains robust with the propensity score matching method. In addition, possible channels lie in the fact that early parent-child separation reduces the closeness of the parent-child relationship and the degree of trust that children have in their parents.