Adult Children’s Migration and Well-being of Left Behind Nepalese Elderly Parents

Saruna Ghimire; Devendra Raj Singh; Dhirendra Nath; Eva M. Jeffers; Maheshor Kaphle

doi:10.2991/j.jegh.2018.07.004

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Volume 8, Issue 3-4, December 2018, Pages 154 - 161

Adult Children’s Migration and Well-being of Left Behind Nepalese Elderly Parents

Authors

Saruna Ghimire¹^{, *}, Devendra Raj Singh², Dhirendra Nath³^{, 4}, Eva M. Jeffers⁵, Maheshor Kaphle³

¹Agrata Health and Education (AHEAD)-Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal

²Asian College for Advance Studies, Purbanchal University, Lalitpur, Nepal

³National Open College, Pokhara University, Lalitpur, Nepal

⁴Southeast Asia Development Actions Network (SADAN), Lalitpur, Nepal

⁵Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Northern Colorado, CO, USA

^* Corresponding author. Email: sarunaghimire@gmail.com

Corresponding Author

Saruna Ghimire

Received 27 March 2018, Accepted 25 July 2018, Available Online 31 December 2018.

DOI: 10.2991/j.jegh.2018.07.004 How to use a DOI?
Keywords: Children’s migration; elderly; well-being; left behind; nepalese
Abstract: The objective of this study is to assess whether adult children’s migration is associated with overall well-being of left-behind elderly parents in Nepal. A cross-sectional house-to-house survey was conducted among 260 community-dwelling elderly residents of Krishnapur municipality, Nepal. Binary logistic regression was used to identify whether migration of adult children was associated with elderly parent’s self-reported chronic diseases, depressive symptoms, perceived loneliness and social support. More than half of the study household (51.2%) had at least one adult migrant child. Compared to participants without a migrant child, participants with a migrant child had higher odds of self-reported chronic diseases (OR = 1.79, 95%CI: 0.91–3.54), presence of depressive symptoms (OR = 1.07, 95%CI: 0.64–1.77), and self-perceived loneliness (OR = 1.23, 95%CI: 1.06–1.42) but except for loneliness, the odds ratio for other indicators of well-being were not statistically significant. Although the literature posits an inverse relationship between adult children’s migration and the overall well-being of the elderly parents, in our study, adult children’s migration was not associated with inverse health outcomes among study participants. However, from a policy perspective, it should be understood that these observations may be transient since the family structure of Nepalese society is rapidly changing.
Open Access: This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc/4.0/).

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Journal: Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health
Volume-Issue: 8 - 3-4
Pages: 154 - 161
Publication Date: 2018/12/31
ISSN (Online): 2210-6014
ISSN (Print): 2210-6006
DOI: 10.2991/j.jegh.2018.07.004 How to use a DOI?
Open Access: This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc/4.0/).

Cite this article

ris enw bib

TY  - JOUR
AU  - Saruna Ghimire
AU  - Devendra Raj Singh
AU  - Dhirendra Nath
AU  - Eva M. Jeffers
AU  - Maheshor Kaphle
PY  - 2018
DA  - 2018/12/31
TI  - Adult Children’s Migration and Well-being of Left Behind Nepalese Elderly Parents
JO  - Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health
SP  - 154
EP  - 161
VL  - 8
IS  - 3-4
SN  - 2210-6014
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/j.jegh.2018.07.004
DO  - 10.2991/j.jegh.2018.07.004
ID  - Ghimire2018
ER  -

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