From “Left-behind Children” to “Migrants”: The Long-Lasting Impact of Left-behind Experience on the Mental Health of New-Generation Migrant Workers

Most of the new-generation of migrant workers have the experience from “left-behind children” to “migrants”, but previous research has paid less attention to the impact of left-behind(LB) experience on their mental health(MH). Using data from the Long-Lasting Impact of Left-behind Experience Survey (2021), this paper aims to analyze the long-lasting impact of left-behind experience (whether being left behind, left behind mode, duration of being left behind, left behind time point) on the MH of new-generation migrant workers and its influence mechanism based on the Life Course Theory and the Cumulative Disadvantage Theory. Results indicated that: (1) the left-behind experience has a long-lasting negative impact on the MH of new-generation migrant workers. (2) the experience of both parents going out has a greater impact on the MH than that of a single parent going out. (3) the longer the left-behind experience lasts, the worse MH of new-generation migrant workers. (4) their MH mainly depends on when the left-behind experience ends, rather than when it begins. The earlier the experience ends, the better their MH condition, that is, "time heals pain". (5) mechanism analysis shows that left-behind experience affects the MH of new-generation migrant workers through the chain mediation of parent-child relationship and psychological capital. After using propensity score matching (PSM) to deal with endogeneity, the long-lasting impact effect still exits.

Keywords: left-behind experience; mental health; life course theory; cumulative disadvantage theory