The Impact Of Parental Non-Agricultural Employment On Child Health In Rural China

As an important signal of human health and living standards, child health breeds effect on long-term health, education, productivity and income for individuals, highly related to the accumulation of human capital within a state. In recent years, the phenomenon that farmers are engaged to off-farm work and the number of left-behind children increases rapidly tends to be more common in rural China. For left-behind children, parental non-agricultural employment not only boosts family income, leading to higher possibility of health-related behavior such as nutrition store and insurance purchasing, but also reduces family scale as well as time for child-care, making it difficult for children to receive in-time attending and integrated education. Thus, research on the impact of parental non-agricultural employment on child health in rural China results from both theoretical evidence and practical significance.Based on the China Health and Nutrition Survey released in 2004,2006 and 2009, the essay makes description on fundamental characters, health and parental situation of rural children from nine provinces in China and analyzes the superficial correlation between child health and parental off-farm work. The elementary finding indicates children who encounter paternal departure possess the best health status for long-term health labeled by body mass index. Meanwhile, Children who go through maternal departure take on the worst. Health status of children who experience both is similar to those who experience neither, along with the former better than the latter. On the other hand, for short-term health labeled by illness symptom, children who suffer maternal non-agricultural employment are likely to be less healthy than remaining groups. Nevertheless, the distinction is not obvious.To illustrate the impact of parental off-farm work on child health in rural China more intensively and more precisely, a Child Health Model is constructed to make econometric analysis on the impact of parental employment and manipulated variables on long-term health of children below six, the impact of parental employment and manipulated variables on long-term health of children aged seven to twelve, the impact of parental employment and manipulated variables on short-term health of children below six and the impact of parental employment and manipulated variables on short-term health of children aged seven to twelve. The age division takes the difference between school age children and pre-school age children into consideration. The result reveals that for long-term health, paternal departure exerts positive effect on both school age children and pre-school age children while maternal departure exerts negative effect on both groups. For short-term health, paternal outing shows no effect while maternal outing affects pre-school age children in negative ways. In total, the essay draws the conclusion that paternal non-agricultural employment promotes child health in long period and maternal non-agricultural employment goes against child health in long period. Simultaneously, maternal departure makes negative influence in short period, especially on pre-school age children.According to the conclusion, the essay puts forward several suggestions. To facilitate child health in rural China, it is necessary to enhance the competitiveness of rural labor force for higher income, create more positions in local industry for aggrandizing the opportunity of female employment in local community and integrate public resources for cutting down the cost of substitute goods linked with child care.