Migration is often part of an economically beneficial livelihood strategy for transnational families. For many of the sending countries in South-east Asia, a growing proportion of transnational migrants are women – around 70% for the Philippines and Indonesia, and under 20% for Thailand and Vietnam. Many of these female migrants are married and an unknown number leave their children behind. Although most send remittances to left-behind kin, visits home tend to be infrequent with migrants going away for two or more years at a time. With demand from wealthy countries for domestic workers, nurses and other carers increasing as their populations age, solving care problems in rich countries may be creating a crisis of care in less developed countries. For instance, the physical and mental health of young children may be adversely affected by an absent parent, perhaps especially so when the migrant is the child’s mother. However, as little is known about the impact of maternal absence on left-behind children in South-East Asia, the evidence base for policy development is thus slim. This project is designed, through quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews, to analyze the impact of parental absence on the health/well-being of left-behind children under 12 years of age.