The Impact of Parental Migration on Social Identity - A Framed Field Experiment with Left-behind Children in China

30 Pages Posted: 7 Apr 2021

See all articles by Siyu Wang

Siyu Wang

Wichita State University - W. Frank Barton School of Business - Department of Economics

Hui Xu

Beijing Normal University

Date Written: April 6, 2021

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that an estimated 61 million rural migrants in China were living outside their hometowns with their children left behind. We examine the impact of parental migration on the social identity among children by conducting a field experiment with 311 children from a major labor-exporting area in China. By exploiting a natural setting on varying parental migration status, we want to study whether children interact with left-behind children and children under parental care differently. Children in our experiment make decisions to divide tokens between left-behind children and children under parental care. They also play a dictator game and an ultimatum game between themselves and another child, whose identity characteristics vary. We find that children, regardless of their own identity, show stronger generosity towards the left-behind children, propose sharing higher amounts with left-behind children, and are willing to accept lower proposed amounts from left-behind children.

Keywords: children, migration, field experiment, gender, group identity, discrimination

JEL Classification: D71, J61, J15

Suggested Citation

Wang, Siyu and Xu, Hui, The Impact of Parental Migration on Social Identity - A Framed Field Experiment with Left-behind Children in China (April 6, 2021). Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3820799

Siyu Wang (Contact Author)

Wichita State University - W. Frank Barton School of Business - Department of Economics ( email )

Wichita, KS 67260-0078
United States

Hui Xu

Beijing Normal University ( email )

No.19 Xinwai Str
Haidian District
Beijing, 100875
China

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
39
Abstract Views
240
PlumX Metrics