With the continuous deepening of urbanization, the number of migrant populations in many developing countries has sharply increased. More and more migrant populations choose to bring their children with them. Investigating the impact of children’s migration on the wage income of migrant populations is of significant importance for understanding the reasons behind labor force migration. This paper utilizes the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) to draw the following conclusions: Firstly, employing instrumental variable methods, it is found that children’s migration reduces the wage income of migrant populations by approximately 17%, further confirmed by Rubin’s counterfactual framework. Secondly, children’s migration increases the care burden of migrant populations by reducing working hours and lowering health conditions, and reduces employment stability and migration scope, thereby negatively affecting wage income. The impact of children’s migration on gender wage gap is particularly evident, significantly reducing the wage income of male migrant populations by 14% and female migrant populations by 31%. Thirdly, heterogeneity analysis shows that the negative impact of children’s migration on wage income is greater for females, those with higher education levels, non-agricultural household registrations, and migrant populations with daughters. The research conclusions of this paper have important policy implications for further expanding the supply of urban public services in China and alleviating the burden on migrant families due to care responsibilities.
Jiang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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