Descriptive statistics of key variables.

There is a growing literature documenting the link between parental migration and children’s health. However, few studies have explained the underlying mechanism of this observed relationship. This paper examines the effect of parental migration on children’s health through dietary diversity, using survey data collected in a less developed prefecture in South Central China in 2018. To overcome the potential endogeneity of parental migration, we instrument parental migration with the proportion of households with migrated labor force at the village level, and find that parental migration reduces children’s dietary diversity at home. Moreover, we provide suggestive evidence that the reduction in dietary diversity may attribute to significant negative separation effects whereas minimal positive income effects in migrant-sending households. This study highlights the negative effects of labor migration on the next generation’s nutrition. In those developing countries with a high prevalence of labor migration, policies that facilitate access to dietary diversity of those left-behind children are warranted.

现有越来越多的文献证实了父母外出务工与子女健康之间的关联，但鲜有研究阐释这一观测关系背后的作用机制。本文基于2018年在中国中南部某欠发达地级行政区采集的调研数据，考察父母外出务工通过膳食多样性（dietary diversity）对子女健康产生的影响。为克服父母外出务工可能存在的内生性问题，本文以村级层面拥有外出务工劳动力的家庭占比作为父母外出务工的工具变量，实证结果表明，父母外出务工会降低留守家庭子女的膳食多样性。此外，本研究提供了提示性证据：膳食多样性的下降或可归因于显著的负向亲子分离效应，而务工输出家庭的正向收入效应则相对微弱。本研究凸显了劳动力外出务工对下一代营养状况的负面影响。在劳动力外出务工率较高的发展中国家，亟需出台相关政策以保障留守儿童能够获得充足多样的膳食。