Gender Differences In Self-Rated Health Of Rural-to-Urban Migrant Population And Influencing Factors

Large numbers of internal migrants have contributed tremendously to China's economic and social development,and the rural-to-urban migrants who have long occupied a dominant position have been an important force for the modernization of urban areas.As family migration has become the main trend of migration,the proportion of female migrants has also continued to rise,and the gender ratio has become more balanced.Along with this,researches on the gender equality of migrants are increasing,among which the issue of gender differences in health has received much attention.Existing researches pointed that female's self-rated health is worse than male's.Meanwhile,the rural-to-urban migrants face large gaps in social environments,and the factors that influence the gender difference in health are more complex than other migrants.Therefore,this study focuses on rural-to-urban migrants;and uses the 2017 national dynamic monitoring data of the migrants to describe the demographic characteristics of rural-to-urban migrants by gender,and binary logistic regression models were constructed to analyze the effects of individual characteristics,family characteristics,and social characteristics on self-rated health and the differences of influences between male and female.Furthermore,I also examined whether the differences of influences of the above factors between male and female change with age grows.First,the preliminary results show that the self-rated health status of female rural-to-urban migrants is lower than that of male,and they tend to underestimate their health condition;In terms of socioeconomic characteristics,the increasing rate of female's self-rated health with the improvement of their education level are higher.The difference between self-rated health of employed and non-employed male is larger than female.Except for the unmarried sample,the self-rated health of female in other marital status is lower than male;in terms of individual migration characteristics,the percentage of male rate themselves as healthy rises greater as the migration distance increases,and the percentage of female rate themselves as healthy declines greater as the migration time increases;in terms of household characteristics,The per capita monthly income differs greater between the male rural-to-urban migrants with different self-rated health levels than that of female,and the self-rated health level of female is lower than that of male when the number of cohabiting family members is same.In terms of social characteristics,establishing residents' health records improves the self-rated health of female rural-urban migrants while reduces the self-rated health of male;the differences of access to health education are greater between female with different self-rated health levels than male;and self-rated health level of male declines greater than female as medical services become less accessible.In order to investigate the influencing factors of self-rated health and gender differences in it,and whether the differences of influence will change with age grows,three binary logistic regression models were constructed.In terms of socioeconomic characteristics,the gender differences in self-rated health of rural-to-urban migrants are firstly caused by the socioeconomic status gap between male and female;in terms of migration characteristics,the health immigration effect and epidemiological paradox have a greater impact on old-generation male migrants;in terms of family characteristics,the self-rated health level of the male rural-to-urban migrants in the new generation has the largest increase with the increase in the per capita monthly household income,the increase of the number of cohabiting family members only has positive influence on the self-rated health level of the old-generation female rural-to-urban migrants,and has negative influence on other migrants;in terms of social characteristics,the diversification of health education has a significant effect on improving the self-rated health of the new-generation rural-to-urban migrants,and the self-rated health level of new-generation female increases greatest.Except the new-generation male migrants,other migrants in the "15-minute convenience medical service circle" have significantly higher self-rated health levels.Based on these research results,in order to improve the self-rated health of rural-to-urban migrants and reduce the health gender gap,I proposed countermeasures as following:first,promote the equalization of medical services for migrants;second,promote the diversification of health education methods;third,provide targeted convenient medical services for rural-to-urban migrants;fourth,increase the education penetration rate of rural-to-urban migrants,especially that of female rural-to-urban migrants;fifth,strengthen vocational training for rural-to-urban migrants and protect the workers' legitimate rights and interests of them.