The effect of childhood left‑behind experience on individual’s income: evidence from China

Childhood circumstances may have a long-term impact on individual life-cycle outcomes. Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, we explore the long-term effect of childhood left-behind experience due to parental rural-to-urban migration. The extended regression model is employed to address the potential endogeneity of being left-behind children with an instrument variable. The results indicate that the left-behind experience in childhood leads to a significantly lower income in adulthood. Robustness checks using the probability of being relative poverty validate our findings. Mechanism analysis shows that parental migration would reduce household income per capita, childrenʻs health outcomes, and the probability of enrolling in post-compulsory education, which were the possible channels. Our analysis highlights the long-term consequences of childhood left-behind experience, which suggests the need for preventive intervention to improve the early development of left-behind children and throughout the life course.