Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)

Background and purpose: Large scale out-migration of young adults from rural to urban areas presents a special problem for supporting the rising number of older adults in rural China and exerts significant influences on the well-being of left-behind elders. While a few recent papers have looked at the consequences of children's out-migration on the health and psychological well-being of older parents, the results are inconsistent and most of the findings are limited by the nature of cross-sectional studies. The current paper addresses this crucial intersection between global concerns over population aging and intensified migration trend by examining the association between children's out-migration, intergenerational support and the life satisfaction and physical health of China elder parents over a 2-year interval.

Methods: The sample consisted of 1165 Chinese older adults aged 60+ from baseline and follow-up study in 2001 and 2003, respectively, in rural Anhui province. The 2001 baseline study used stratified multistage method to randomly select potential respondents. 1696 respondents completed the baseline survey and 1165 completed the two surveys. Children's out-migration was indicated by the proportion of migrant children in the family at the baseline. Considering that the children's migration might have happened before the baseline survey, intergenerational support received by older parents was measured by the monetary, instrumental and emotional support received at the baseline. The health and life satisfaction outcomes were assessed at the follow-up study by a functional health difficulty sum score and a life-satisfaction scale adapted from Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin (1985), respectively. A model was hypothesized assuming that children's out-migration have both direct effects on older parents' life satisfaction and health, and indirect effects through the changing intergenerational support. Structural equation models (SEM) were computed with the AMOS statistical program to test the model and the causal relationships between variables.

Results: The SEM results indicated a reasonably good fit of the model ( χ2 (df =13) = 94.531, p<.001; CFI = .969; RMSEA = .073). Findings showed that children's out-migration had a direct negative impact on older parents' functional health status (β = -1.270, p<.001), but not their life satisfaction (β = -.138, p = .531). Children's out-migration significantly deceased the instrumental support received by elderly parents (β = -.111, p=.007), which, in turn, was correlated with the low health status of the older adults (β = .674, p<.001).Children's out-migration also increased monetary support received by the parents (β = 1.077, p<.001), which significantly contributed to their sense of life satisfaction (β = .218, p<.001). Furthermore, the findings indicated no significant relationship between children's out-migration and the emotional support received by older parents. This suggests that even family spatial dispersion affect the material support received by older adults, emotional ties are still maintained between elder parents and their migrant children.

Conclusions and implications. Results suggest that children's out-migration imposes negative impact on older parents' physical health, but also enhances their life satisfaction through increased monetary support. Different types of intergenerational support and health outcomes of older adults need to be distinguished in future studies.