Menashe-Oren Ashira
Centre for Demographic Research, Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Demography. 2025 Aug 1;62(4):1341-1366. doi: 10.1215/00703370-12159038.
Understanding the circumstances in which children migrate is important to ensure their well-being. Yet, child migration in sub-Saharan Africa is not easy to measure. Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) provide an excellent opportunity to estimate child migration in the region. I examine out-migration patterns of children younger than 15 in eastern and southern Africa, where adult mortality is high, fostering is prevalent, and households are dynamic. Using longitudinal data pooled from 15 HDSS, covering roughly 451,000 children, I find that most children who migrate do so with their mothers (tied migration). Moreover, an intergenerational link between a mother's and her child's mobility is evident: children whose mothers are migrants are more likely to migrate themselves. Despite some expectations of agency in child mobility in later childhood (for education or work), children who out-migrate independently of their mothers are often orphaned or have mothers living elsewhere. Maternal death is a forceful driver of child migration, especially within six months following a mother's death. Thus, orphaned migrants are exposed to the double shock of losing a parent and a change in their immediate environment. However, children in larger households tend to migrate less, somewhat dampening the mobility of orphans.
了解儿童迁移的具体情况对于确保他们的福祉至关重要。然而，撒哈拉以南非洲地区的儿童迁移情况并不容易衡量。卫生与人口监测系统（HDSS）为估计该地区的儿童迁移情况提供了绝佳机会。我研究了非洲东部和南部15岁以下儿童的迁出模式，这些地区成人死亡率高，寄养现象普遍，家庭情况多变。利用从15个卫生与人口监测系统汇总的纵向数据，涵盖约45.1万名儿童，我发现大多数迁移的儿童是与母亲一起迁移的（依附性迁移）。此外，母亲和孩子迁移之间的代际联系很明显：母亲是移民的孩子自己更有可能迁移。尽管人们对儿童在童年后期因教育或工作等原因自主迁移有所预期，但那些独立于母亲迁出的儿童往往是孤儿或母亲住在其他地方。母亲死亡是儿童迁移的一个有力驱动因素，尤其是在母亲去世后的六个月内。因此，成为孤儿的移民儿童面临失去父母和直接生活环境改变的双重冲击。然而，大家庭中的儿童迁移倾向较小，这在一定程度上抑制了孤儿的迁移率。
