Title : Disparities of health trajectories between migrants and native residents: An empirical study in China
Abstract:
While many studies have found health advantages for migrants at the beginning of arrival, findings on changes in the health trajectories of migrants relative to natives have been mixed, and empirical evidence based on China is even more scarce, even though China experiences the most extensive internal migration today. This study investigates migrant-native disparities in the speed of health deterioration in China and considers the heterogeneity of such disparities based on socioeconomic-demographic characteristics. We use data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from 2010 to 2018 and longitudinal analyses. For pooled cross-sectional data analyses, we use logistic regression with self-rated health, chronic disease, and two-week illness as dependent variables, respectively, and find that in China’s cities, newly arrived internal migrants have better self-rated health and lower risk of chronic diseases than that of native residents, but such health advantage disappears as the duration increase, with long-term internal migrants have poorer self-rated health and higher risk of chronic diseases than that of locals. Analyses with self-rated health change as the dependent variable still find that internal migrants have a higher probability of reporting health become worse. For the balanced panel data analyses, we use the curve growth model and the Cox proportional hazards model, finding that the self-rated health of internal migrants declines more rapidly over time. For the analyses of the heterogeneity, we mainly use the self-rated health change as the dependent variable and find that the health deterioration of internal migrants weakens with age relative to native residents. However, there is a double disadvantage effect of “age” and “migration” on health change when reaching a certain age inflection point, and the health deterioration of internal migrants becomes more serious with the increase in education level.
