This dissertation consists three quantitative analyses that aim to examine the impact of migration not only on migrants themselves, but also on their young children and older parents, using data from China and Mexico. The first analysis examines how out-migration of young adults affect their older parents’ well-being in terms of both self-reported health and depressive symptoms in rural China, using the 2011–2015 China Health and Retirement Study. Results show that migration contributes to health inequality among older parents in rural China. Rural elderly who have all children being migrants are more likely to report poor health and depression compared to those who have no migrant children, after controlling for selection of migration and community-level factors. The second analysis investigates the impact of both parental and child migration on children’s cognitive development and school enrollment in China. Using the 2013-2015 China Education Panel Survey, this analysis is the first of its kind to show how children of urban origin might be affected in the era of massive migration and how the impact of parental migration and child migration on children’s cognitive development and school enrollment might vary by the children’s urban/rural origin. Results show that urban left-behind are not immune to the potential adverse impact of parental migration. Although the impact of migration on children’s cognitive development is limited after adjusting for selection of migration, children left-behind, particularly those completely left-behind, are much more likely to drop out of junior high school compared to their counterparts in non-migrant families and those who migrate with their parents, regardless of urban/rural hukou type. The third analysis examines how Mexico-U.S. migration affects union stability among Mexican male household heads and whether the impact varies by union type, union duration as well as legal status of the immigrants, using the 1999-2016 Mexican Migration Project data. Results based on multilevel discrete-time event history analysis show that Mexican male household heads with more U.S. migration experience are significantly more likely to experience union dissolution compared to those without U.S. migration experience. The impact of U.S. migration experience on union stability also varies significantly by the legal status of the immigrant and union type. Being in the U.S. with legal resident or citizen status is most likely to increase risk of union dissolution, but being in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant or with temporary work visa overall is not significantly associated with higher risk of union dissolution compared to staying in the origin. Also, while being a legal resident in the U.S. largely increases odds of union dissolution among civil unions, it does not have a significant impact on religious unions.
Liu, Zhen,
"The Well-being of Migrant Families: Evidence from China and Mexico"
(2019).
Sociology Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/h123-8z10
