title: China's Left-Behind Children: Impact Of Parental Migration On Health, Nutrition, And Educational Outcomes.
abstract: China's rapid development and urbanization have induced large numbers of rural residents to migrate from their homes to urban areas in search of better job opportunities. Parents typically leave their children behind with a caregiver, creating a new, potentially vulnerable subpopulation of left-behind children in rural areas. A growing number of policies and nongovernmental organization efforts target these children. The primary objective of this study was to examine whether left-behind children are really the most vulnerable and in need of special programs. Pulling data from a comprehensive data set covering 141,000 children in ten provinces (from twenty-seven surveys conducted between 2009 and 2013), we analyzed nine indicators of health, nutrition, and education. We found that for all nine indicators, left-behind children performed as well as or better than children living with both parents. However, both groups of children performed poorly on most of these indicators. Based on these findings, we recommend that special programs designed to improve health, nutrition, and education among left-behind children be expanded to cover all children in rural China.
authors.affiliation: Chengchao Zhou is an associate professor of public health at the School of Public Health, Shandong University, in China.
authors.forename: Chengchao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Sean Sylvia is an assistant professor of economics at the School of Economics, Renmin University of China, in Beijing.
authors.forename: Sean
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sylvia
authors.affiliation: Linxiu Zhang (lxzhang.ccap@igsnrr.ac.cn) is a professor of economics at the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing.
authors.forename: Linxiu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Renfu Luo is an associate professor of economics at the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
authors.forename: Renfu
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Hongmei Yi is an associate professor of economics at the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
authors.forename: Hongmei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.affiliation: Chengfang Liu is an associate professor of economics at the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
authors.forename: Chengfang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Yaojiang Shi is a professor of economics at the Center for Experimental Economics in Education, Shaanxi Normal University, in China.
authors.forename: Yaojiang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Prashant Loyalka is an assistant (research) professor of education at the Graduate School of Education and a center research fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, in California.
authors.forename: Prashant
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Loyalka
authors.affiliation: James Chu is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology, Stanford University.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.affiliation: Alexis Medina is a project manager at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University.
authors.forename: Alexis
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Medina
authors.affiliation: Scott Rozelle is a professor of economics at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rozelle
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D000067576:Child Health; D015362:Child Nutrition Disorders; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012424:Rural Population; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D035862:Vulnerable Populations
keywords: Children’s Health; Public Health; Special Populations