Impact of Rural-Urban Migration on Rural Children: A Micro­-level Study

Abstract

Rural-urban adult migration mainly adult male migration makes heavy demand on all family members, but especially on children who are left behind in rural area to shoulder the responsibility of agricultural production and food security. Labor shortage due to rural-urban adult migration may mean that children in rural area often have to face tighter time schedules and patterns of time use and flu man energy inputs required in agricultural production. The study revealed the impact of rural-urban migration on rural children. In the study, sample was restricted to households that own and/or operate agricultural land in rural area. A purposive sampling was adopted to select villages and covered 100 sample households. The study was based on link between rural-urban migration of adult persons and child labor in rural area. The empirical result showed that an additional rural migrant of a household increases the probability of having child worker in that household by approximately 51%. However, it was found that children of migrant households receive less preventive health care in their infancy. The study also showed that an additional adult worker of a household increases the probability of having child worker in that household by 29%. For this reason, this study supports the hypothesis that children are the last economic resource of a household.