Heterogeneous effects of return migration on children's mental health and cognitive outcomes

Abstract

As a neglected group, the number of return migrant children is growing with China's monumental volume of labor migration. Using data from 2013 to 2014 China Education Panel Survey, this study examines heterogeneous effects of return migration on children's mental health and cognitive outcomes. Our results show that the effects of return migration on children vary with the propensity for return migration. More importantly, when children are at risk of return migration, even if that risk is small, it already has a negative impact on children's mental health, which reminds us that it needs to take a dynamic view to study the impact of return migration on children. However, the impact of return migration is not all negative, and the findings suggest that return migration can promote the cognitive development of urban-origin migrant children. A striking regional difference emerges from our analysis: due to urban-rural gap, the impact of return migration on children from urban and rural areas is different. Specifically, return migration has a positive effect on the cognitive development of urban-origin migrant children while return migration does some harm to that of rural-origin migrant children, which implies that return migration may widen the gap between urban and rural children.