Mosca, Irene and Barrett, Alan (2016) The impact of adult child emigration on the mental health of older parents. Journal of Population Economics, 29. pp. 687-719. ISSN 0933-1433

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Abstract

We explore whether older parents of adult children who emigrate experience, in the short term, increases in depressive symptoms and loneliness feelings compared to parents whose children do not migrate. We use data from the first two waves of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, which is a nationally representative sample of 8500 people aged 50+ living in Ireland. To deal with the endogeneity of migration, we apply fixed-effects estimation models and control for a broad range of life events occurring between the two waves. These include the emigration of a child but also events such as bereavement, onset of disease, retirement and unemployment. We find that depressive symptoms and loneliness feelings increase among the parents of migrant children but that the effect is only present for mothers. As the economic burden of mental health problems is high, our findings have potentially significant impacts for migrant-sending regions and countries.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Emigration; Depression; Mental health; Older parents; Health and Economic Development; Economics of the Elderly, Economics of the Handicapped, Non-Labor Market Discrimination; International Migration;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics, Finance and Accounting
Item ID:	11378
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-015-0582-8
Depositing User:	Irene Mosca
Date Deposited:	18 Oct 2019 09:52
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Population Economics
Publisher:	Springer Verlag
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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