Impact of children's migration on health and health care-seeking behavior of elderly left behind (original) (raw)
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The impact of migration on elderly care in developing countries: the hard truth
Migration is a social phenomenon that has been increasing over the last few decades and has specifically become more complex due to globalisation. Apart from the substantial positive gains, migration also has potential negative implications on the physical and mental health of both the migrants and the elderly parents who have been left behind. In many developing countries, the traditional family hierarchy of dependence on the male child for support has destabilised due to migration. In addition, the lack of proper infrastructure for social care and pension system has had a devastating impact on the general wellbeing of elderly population in these countries. Migrants also tend to usually adopt the local culture of the place they have emigrated to. The emotional impact on the elderly in seeing their children and grandchildren moving away from their traditional culture also has a secondary detrimental effect on their mental health. There is an urgent need at both local and international level to highlight these issues so that policies can be implemented to promote infrastructure improvement, efficient healthcare delivery and social support systems for this group of the population.
The Effects of Children’s Migration on Elderly Kin’s Health: A Counterfactual Approach
Demography, 2011
Recent studies of migration and the left-behind have found that elders with migrant children actually experience better health outcomes than those with no migrant children, yet these studies raise many concerns about self-selection. Using three rounds of panel survey data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey, we employ the counterfactual framework developed by Rosenbaum and Rubin to examine the relationship between having a migrant child and the health of elders aged 50 and older, as measured by activities of daily living (ADL), self-rated health (SRH), and mortality. As in earlier studies, we find a positive association between old-age health and children’s migration, an effect that is partly explained by an individual’s propensity to have migrant children. Positive impacts of migration are much greater among elders with a high propensity to have migrant children than among those with low propensity. We note that migration is one of the single greatest sources of health disparity among the elders in our study population, and point to the need for research and policy aimed at broadening the benefits of migration to better improve health systems rather than individual health.
Wārasān prachākō̜n læ sangkhom = Journal of population and social studies
An increasing number of parents are migrating to seek jobs elsewhere while leaving young children in the care of others, and little is known about the consequences for children. This study examines the impact of parental out-migration on the physical health of children left behind. Data for this paper were taken from the 2007 survey of migration and health from Kanchanaburi, Thailand. A total of 11,241 children who have both parents were included in the survey. The study found that 14.5% of children had either one or both migrant parents. Overall, 25.5% of all children had an illness during the month prior to the survey. Analysis reveals that having one migrant parent was independently associated with a higher likelihood of an illness (odds ratio of mother migrant children = 1.37; odds ratio of father migrant children =1.23) than those with no parents or both parents migrating. The findings suggest that strategies to alleviate the negative impact of parental migration as well as to maintain and enhance the well-being of families, especially of the children left behind are warranted.
The study aims to shed a light on the impact of the internal migration children and other factors on the physical and mental health of the old-age parents left behind. By the data of Vietnamese Aging Survey in the year 2011 (VNAS 2011), the study applied logistic regression models in order to analyze the impact of the internal migration children and other factors on the elderly's health in terms of (1) poor mental health; (2) self-rated health; (3) chronic diseases; (4) illness; (5) treatment sought for diseases/illness; (6) activities of daily living; and (7) body function limits. The logistic regression models' independent variables are having at least one child internally migrate, age, gender, living arrangement, residential region, education level, as well as the household's income. The study proves that in general, in Vietnam the old-age parents' physical and mental health is not impacted by their internal migration children. However, the male elderly are more likely to have poor mental health than the female elderly as their children domestically migrate. The study further investigates that the physical and mental health of the elderly are relevant to other factors, namely the household's income; gender; age; residential region; living arrangement or education level.
Migration, Health Status and Utilization of Health Services
Sociology of Health and Illness, 1980
Evidence concerning the relations of migration to health status and health care utilization is inconclusive. This paper outlines the theoretical positions on these relations and reviews the empirical findings supporting varying positions. The paper also presents the findings of a survey of a probability sample of the U.S. population concerning these issues. The analysis is organized around comparisons among immigrants from other societies, internal migrants, and nonmigrants on important dimensions of health status and the utilization of different types of health services. Comparisons were also made among first generation, second generation, and 'old stock.' Finally, immigrants were grouped by country and area of origin to assess the influence of cultural differences on health and the utilization of services. Attempts were made to control the influence of demographic characteristics while assessing the relations between migration and health status. The controlled analysis showed immigrants to enjoy better health conditions followed by migrants and then the nonmigrants. Significant differences in physical performance were manifested among immigrants from varying areas of origin, and also among generations of nativity. Controlling for both demographic characteristics and health status, immigrants were consistently the least utilizers of services and internal migrants the highest. An increase in utilization was associated with generational residence in the U.S. First generation were least utilizers, followed by second generation with the 'old stock' being the greatest utilizers. Immigrants from different countries and regions of the world also exhibited significant differences in the patterns of utilization of health services.
Assessing Migration Health Care Implications: A Sistematic Review of Literature
diem.unige.it
At present the migrant phenomenon concerns all developed countries and is steadily raising with direct implications on health. The uprooting of people from their places of origin, the impact with an often completely different cultural and religious context, the unemployment and state of poverty which expose these people to peculiar risks deeply affect these migrant populations making them particularly vulnerable. The situation is made even more worrying because of the difficult access of migrants to health information. Therefore it is extremely important to carry out actions and interventions aiming at informing groups of mobile populations both on health risks and the opportunity they have to access health services.
The impact of adult child emigration on the mental health of older parents
Journal of Population Economics, 2016
The Impact of Adult Child Emigration on the Mental Health of Older Parents A growing literature within economics has sought to examine the impacts of emigration on sending countries. Some of the studies have looked within families and have investigated how emigration affects those family members who are left behind. In this paper, we explore whether older parents of adult children who emigrate experience declines in mental health compared to parents whose children do not migrate. We use data from the first two waves of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing. This is a nationally representative sample of 8,500 people aged 50 and above living in Ireland collected in 2009-11 (Wave 1) and 2012-13 (Wave 2). To deal with the endogeneity of migration, we apply fixed effects estimation models and control for a broad range of life-events occurring between the two waves. These include the emigration of a child but also events such as bereavement, onset of disease, retirement and unemployment. We find that depressive symptoms and feelings of loneliness increase among the parents of migrant children but that the effect is only present for mothers. Given the relationship between mental health and other health outcomes, the potential impacts for the older populations of migrant-sending regions and countries are significant.
Adult children's migration and well-being of left behind Nepalese elderly parents
Elsevier , 2018
The objective of this study is to assess whether adult children's migration is associated with overall well-being of left-behind elderly parents in Nepal. A cross-sectional house-to-house survey was conducted among 260 community-dwelling elderly residents of Krishnapur municipality, Nepal. Binary logistic regression was used to identify whether migration of adult children was associated with elderly parent's self-reported chronic diseases, depressive symptoms, perceived loneliness and social support. More than half of the study household (51.2%) had at least one adult migrant child. Compared to participants without a migrant child, participants with a migrant child had higher odds of self-reported chronic diseases (OR = 1.79, 95%CI: 0.91–3.54), presence of depressive symptoms (OR = 1.07, 95%CI: 0.64–1.77), and self-perceived loneliness (OR = 1.23, 95%CI: 1.06–1.42) but except for loneliness, the odds ratio for other indicators of well-being were not statistically significant. Although the literature posits an inverse relationship between adult children's migration and the overall well-being of the elderly parents, in our study, adult children's migration was not associated with inverse health outcomes among study participants. However, from a policy perspective, it should be understood that these observations may be transient since the family structure of Nepalese society is rapidly changing.