随迁对流动人口未成年子女身体发育的影响

摘要

Using data collected by the Rural-Urban Migration in China Project (RUMiC 2008), this paper studies the impact of migration on physical development of migrant workers' minor children. In tackling the endogenous problem between migration and physical development , the usual OLS is used in the analysis while Propensity Score Matching method is used as a robustness test. It finds that comparing with left-behind children , migration significantly improves the height of migrant workers' minor children, but with no significance in body weight growth. This result is robust to model specification and estimation method. Considering the effect of physical development on labor market in future , China's government should speed up the improvements of household registration and education system to make it easier for minor children to migrate with their parents.%基于 2008 年中国城乡劳动力流动调查数据, 本文分析了随迁对流动人口子女身体发育的影响. 为了处理随迁与身体发育之间可能存在的内生性问题, 除了采用通常的 OLS 方法外, 本文还采用倾向得分匹配法 (PSM) 进行估计. 总体看, 本文发现相对于留守儿童, 随迁显著提高了流动人口未成年子女的身高发育水平, 但对体重发育的影响则不显著, 估计结果对所施加的控制变量及不同的估计方法都表现出较强的稳健性. 鉴于身体发育会对未来劳动力市场表现产生重要影响, 我国应加快户籍制度、 教育制度等的改革步伐, 以降低流动人口子女随迁难度.