Should Parents Work Away from or Close to Home? The Effect of Temporary Parental Absence on Child Poverty and Children’s Time Use in Vietnam

Nguyen, Cuong Viet and Vu, Linh Hoang (2014): Should Parents Work Away from or Close to Home? The Effect of Temporary Parental Absence on Child Poverty and Children’s Time Use in Vietnam.

Abstract

Working away from home might bring higher earnings than working near home. However, the absence of parents due to work can have unexpected effects on children. This paper examines the effects of the temporary absence of parents on the well-being of children aged 5–8 years old in Vietnam, using indicators of household poverty, per capita consumption expenditure, and child time allocation. The paper relies on OLS and fixed-effects regression and panel data from the Young Lives surveys in 2007 and 2009. It finds a positive correlation between parental absence and per capita expenditure. Parental absence tends to increase per capita food expenditure instead of per capita non-food expenditure. Regarding the way children spend their time, there are no statistically significant effects of parental absence.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Parental migration, child poverty, remittances, impact evaluation, Vietnam.
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O15 - Human Resources ; Human Development ; Income Distribution ; Migration; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R2 - Household Analysis > R23 - Regional Migration ; Regional Labor Markets ; Population ; Neighborhood Characteristics

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