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Labour Migration and Time Use Patterns of the Left-Behind Children and Elderly in Rural China

Presented by Fiona MacPhail Gender Equity Community of Practice Seminar, Asian Development Bank, Manila, June 17, 2011
Based upon a paper by Hongqin Chang, Xiao-yuan Dong and Fiona MacPhail, World Development, forthcoming
The views exressed in this aer are the views of the author and do not necessaril reflect the views or olicies of the AsianDev elopment Bank (ADB), or its Board of Governors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of thedata included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use.The countries listed in this paper do notimply any view on ADB's part as to sovereignty or independent status or necessarily conform to ADB's terminology.

INTRODUCTION: Migration in China


Increased labour mobility
30 million migrants (late 1980s) (recent years) (Fan 2009) 180 million migrants

Temporary not permanent


59 million children (about 28 %) are left-behind (ACWF 2008)

Impacts of migration on left-behind population


Remittances reduce poverty (Zhu & Luo 2008) Less attention to non-income dimensions (school performance, depression) and mixed empirical evidence (Du et al 2004, Ma & Zhou 2009)

Research Question
What is the impact of migration on time use patterns of left-behind children and elderly in rural China, 1997-2006 ?

Why time use?


Comprehensive measure of work Directly affects well-being (Esquivel et al 2008; Blackden & Wodon 2006) Useful but ..interpretation of time use for wellbeing not always straightforward
distribution loss of leisure/education change between categories e..g. unpaid agricultural work to wage work (MacPhail and Dong 2007, Song 2008)

Contributions
Complements studies of well-being which have used other indicators of well-being Direct evidence of time use of elderly and children Three work categories off-farm, farm and domestic Adds to general literature on intra-household time allocation

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Gendered division of labour female-inside/maleoutside dichotomy (anthropological, China, Yu & Chau 1997) Some evidence (limited) but children do work Intergenerational division of labour exists (time use data, China, Chen 2004, Zhang et al 2004) Impact of migration ?
i) split households (China, Fan & Wang 2008 ii) shifting boundary between inside and outside (China, Jacka 1997).

Hypothesis: Migration will increase work time


But work time of whom in, in what categories? Migrant remittances expected to decrease time spent working Loss of migrant labour reduces labour supply and increases wages (or shadow wages)
two effects price effect increases time spent working, income effect decreases time spent working Hypothesize an increase in work time given low levels of income

Expect gender differentiated impacts


Off-farm work increase time of elderly men (gender norms and labour market discrimination) Farm work - increase time all remaining groups (maintain user rights to land, limited wage labour) Domestic work increase time elderly women and girls (gender norms)

EMPIRICAL METHODOLOGY
Equation'1'

H jit = 0 + 1Mit + I + Z +V + p +t + u jit

' it 2

' it 3

' it 4

Multivariate regression analysis of Time Use hours allocated to the separate categories

As function of
M=Migration number of household members migrated I= Set of Demographic variables - years of schooling, age Z=Set of Household variables composition of household, land area per adult, value of farm and non-farm equipment, unearned income V=Set of Economic Development variables proportion of village labour force engaged in agriculture, village income per capita, whether the village has access to electricity, paved roads and center-based childcare

Data
China Health and Nutrition Survey Nine provinces Data pooled over the years 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006 and cross-section across the country. Use a Tobit estimation technique and Instrumental Variable technique Sample size (# of observations for the average year)
Elderly sample (51 years and older) 3,333 and 3,231 observations, respectively, women and men per year Children (7 to 14 years) 1,579 and 1,742, respectively, girls and boys per year

Table 1: Summary statistics of migration for the sample villages, 1997 to 2006
Year Elderly people
Households with at least one member migrating (%) Number of household members migrating 2 (person) At least one parent migratin g (%)

Children
Father Number migrating of parents (%) migrating (person)

1997 2000 2004 2006

20.0 24.4 29.7 37.1

1.48 1.50 1.68 1.84

5.50 12.82 8.52 11.11

4.71 9.23 6.13 9.52


6/26/11

1.09 1.18 1.14 1.10

Impacts of migration (one person migrating) on time use -- multivariate analysis


Farm Domestic

Elderly Women % change in work Participation rate Elderly Men % change in work Participation rate Girls

197 hours/year (34 %) 12% 104 hours/year (18 %) 6% --

0.5 hours/day (23 %) 7% 0.2 hours/day (26 %) 7.5% 0.751hours/day (5.3 hours/week) 54%

Boys

--

0.239 hours/day

CONCLUSIONS
Migration of one household member increases the work time of left-behind children and elderly (both on farm and domestic work) Migration modifies the gender division of labour
Increased time on farm work in absolute and relative terms, indicative of changing boundary of inside work grandmothers working more

Migration modifies the intergenerational division of labour


Increased time by elderly on farm work to domestic work

Reinforced traditional gender division of labour among children

Implications
Implications for well-being unclear does the increased work time negatively affect girls (schooling, socialization?) and requires further investigation Other variables in the model also affect time use infrastructure electricity, paved roads has implications for policy Policies to enable households to migrate rather than individuals

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