How far is Chinese left-behind parents' health left behind?

- We assess the impacts of adult children migration on the health of their parents left behind.
- The endogeneous treatment effects model is adopted to address the endogeneity concern.
- Children migration significantly impairs the health of their elderly kin.
- Children migration has remarkably differentiated locality, gender, age, and employment impacts on the health of their left-behind parents.

Using data from the four waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), this paper assesses the impacts of adult children migration on the health of their parents left behind. We employ the endogenous treatment effects model to address the selection bias and infer the causal effects of children migration on parental health. We find that children migration significantly impairs the health of their elderly kin. Moreover, children migration has remarkably differentiated locality, gender, age, and employment impacts, with rural, female, old-aged, and unemployed parents being more likely to suffer from poor health than their urban, male, middle-aged, and employed counterparts.