Journal Article
Labor migration in Indonesia and the health of children left behind

Economic research on labor migration in the developing world has traditionally focused on the role played by the remittances of overseas migrant labor in the sending country’s economy (for a survey of the empirical literature on remittances. In the last decade, more attention has been paid to migration for work and its effects on the socioeconomic outcomes of sending households, thanks in large part to the increased availability of household survey data from developing countries.

This study contributes to this particular strain of the migration literature by examining how the temporary migration of parents for work affects the health of children left behind, using the longitudinal data obtained from the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS).

Parental labor migration may be expected to improve children’s nutrition and health care through expansion of the household budget constraint from remittances. However, deleterious effects of parental absence could offset these gains. The net effect of parental migration on the health of left-behind children is therefore an empirical question.