Child Development in the Face of Rural-to-Urban Migration in China

Abstract

In the last 30 years, China has undergone one of the largest rural-to-urban migrations in human history, with many children left behind because of parental migration. We present a meta-analytic review of empirical studies on Chinese children's rural-to-urban migration and on rural children left behind because of parental migration. We examine how these events relate to children's emotional, social, and academic developmental outcomes. We include publications in English and in Chinese to uncover and quantify a part of the research literature that has been inaccessible to most Western scholars in the field of child and family studies. Overall, both migrant children and children left behind by migrant parents in China show significantly less favorable functioning across domains than other Chinese children. It appears that, similar to processes found in other parts of the world, the experience of economic and acculturation stress as well as disrupted parent-child relations constitute a risk for nonoptimal child functioning in the Chinese context. Further, we found evidence for publication bias against studies showing less favorable development for migrant children and children left behind. We discuss the results in terms of challenges to Chinese society and to future empirical research on Chinese family life.

Family socioeconomic status and emotional adaptation among rural‐to‐urban migrant adolescents in China: The moderating roles of adolescent's resilience and parental positive emotion

“…As for the negative effect of length of residence in the city on depression, it may be simply due to that migrant adolescents gradually adapt to the new customs and lives style in the city. Or they might gain from the benefit from their migration, such as improving live standard and new life perspectives (Wang & Mesman, ). Similar benefits of migration can also find in India (Srivastava & Sasikumar, ).…”

Migration patterns, family functioning, and life satisfaction among migrant children in China: A mediation model

“…Owing to the rapid economic development and urbanization of China, an increasing number of rural labourers have migrated to cities since the 1980s, causing a dramatic rise in family migration and the phenomenon of migrant children in China. “Migrant children” refers to rural children <18 years of age who accompany their parents to their host cities (Wang & Mesman, ). According to the Data Report on Chinese Migrant Children (), their number has reached 35.81 million.…”

Parent–child communication and self‐esteem mediate the relationship between interparental conflict and children's depressive symptoms

“…Among these migrants were 35.81 million children (younger than 18 years of age) who migrated with their parents or were born into migrant families (All-China Women's Federation, 2013). Migrant children face an array of challenges in their adaptation to the city's environments, including peer rejection, fewer rights to health care, and difficulties in attending public schools (Hu, Lu, & Huang, 2014;Wang & Mesman, 2015). Consequently, they might suffer from chronic stress and display psychological maladjustments such as feelings of loneliness, low self-esteem, social anxiety, depression, and behavioural problems (Jia & Liu, 2017;Li, Stanton, Fang, & Lin, 2006;Mao & Zhao, 2012;Wang & Mesman, 2015;Ye et al, 2016).…”