Inter-relationships of migration and health of the elderly in the left-behind households: some evidence from four waves of the Indonesia family life surveys

Bondan Sikoki, SurveyMETER
John Strauss, University of Southern California
Wayan Suriastini, SurveyMETER

The paper uses data from four waves of the Indonesia Family Life Survey, IFLS1(1993), IFLS2(1997), IFLS3(2000), and the new IFLS4(2007) to explore the relationship between migration and well-being of the elderly, with the focus on health. Using longitudinal data may not solve the difficulties of isolating the causal pathways between migration and well being of the left-behind household members, but it does add substantial insights to our understanding of the relationships. We look at health outcomes among elderly across survey waves spanning over 14 years, during which some proportion of households had some members migrating and the rest did not. We focus on a number of health measures, including subjective measures such as the self-reported general health status (GHS), activities of daily living (ADL/IADL), a 10-question version of the CES-D measure of mental health/depression, as well as objective health measures such as hemoglobin levels, body mass indices, and cholesterol levels.