The Study On Migration Condition And Its Influence On Health Of Farmers In Four Counties

With the industrialization and urbanization accelerating, migrant workers have become the main force of China's industrial labor, they make a significant contribution to the development of China while being at the margins and the bottom of society. Meanwhile, a large number of young rural migrant workers works in cities and women, children as well as the elderly to form a special phenomenon of "left-behind elderly people", "left-behind children" and "left-behind women". It has become the outstanding issues for the development and stability of rural society that left-behind elderly people are lack of reliance, left-behind children are lack of concern and left-behind spouses are lack of love. Therefore, it is not only of great academic significance but also a certain social value to study migration condition and its influence on health of farmers.The purpose of this study is to describe the migration condition of farmers, evaluate the health level with the general health questionnaire GHQ-12 as well as health status of farmers'self-rated in four counties, investigate health influencing factors of the migrants and the left-behinds which aim to provide useful recommendations on migration to improve health level and the quality of life.Anyue county in Sichuan, Linquan county in Anhui, and Caoxian and Chiping county in Shandong were selected as samples. According to socio-economic development levels and geographical distributions, adopting cluster stratified random sampling method,1810 households were investigated. Survey contents includes as follows:①the basic situation of the investigated family and demographic characteristics of members;②migration information;③health status of people being investigated. The analysis methods include as follows:①checking the reliability and validity of GHQ-12 questionnaire with factor analysis;②analyzing demographic characteristics of migrants and basic situation of migration with descriptive analysis; ③comparing basic situation, social support and life satisfaction between migrants and non-migrants (or left-behinds and non-left-behinds) with/test, chi-square test and rank test;④analyzing health differences and influencing factors of migrants and non-migrants (or left-behinds and non-left-behinds) with rank test and log-linear regression.Key findings:①The reliability and validity analysis of GHQ-12 indicated that Split-half coefficient and Cronbach's a coefficient are both higher than 0.7, so the reliability is good; the three factors generated by factor analysis are basically consistent with the supposed theory, so the validity is also satisfying.②The average age of migrant workers is 28.6-year-old.Obviously,there are more male workers than female workers and most are married people. The educational level of them are concentrated on the junior school and mean per capita net income is 4206 Yuan in 2005. In term of migration information, nearly 80% migrants choose to work outside the province, mainly concentrated in East China's coastal areas such as Guangdong and Zhejiang province. It is about two and a half years for the duration of work. The occupation of migrants is concentrated in service industry such as factory work, construction and catering with 915 Yuan a month averagely. Migrants get access to working information often by the introduction of relatives or fellows in order to increase income and improve their lives.③Migrants are in the high proportion of young men and their level of education and per capita net income are both higher than non-migrants, but the degree of income satisfaction and life satisfaction is lower than the latter. Left-behinds are older and the female accounts for high proportion whose overall educational level and life satisfaction is lower than non-left-behinds. Migration does have influence on acquiring social support of migrants and the left-behinds.④As far as the health condition, firstly, there's no significant difference between migrants and non-migrants on self-rated health scores. However, migrants are separately 1.13 points and 0.75 points higher than non-migrants in view of GHQ-12 scale scores and depression/anxiety scores. That is to say, the mental health level of migrants is lower than that of non-migrants. Through a multi-factor analysis, it is found that migration is an influencing factor on GHQ-12 scale scores and depression/anxiety scores after excluding disturbance of confounding factors. Secondly, the left-behinds are 2.68 points lower than non-left-behinds on self-rated health scores while they are separately 0.82 points and 0.67 points higher than the latter in view of GHQ-12 scale scores and depression/anxiety scores. That is to say, the health level of the left-behinds is lower than that of non-left-behinds. Through a multi-factor analysis, it is also found that being left is an influencing factor on GHQ-12 scale scores and depression/anxiety scores after excluding disturbance of confounding factors.Conclusions and recommendations:①Increasing farmers'income and making use of opportunities of rural construction to narrowing the urban-rural income gap.②Strengthening the psychological intervention of migrants to improve their mental health.③Strengthening construction of the legal system to improve health care and social security system related to migrants.④Formulating related measures to improve the health status of the left-behinds.⑤Adopting comprehensive measures and co-concerning about the legitimate rights and interests of migrants to improve their health.