No longer left-behind: The impact of return migrant parents on children's performance

Abstract

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The Effects of Parental Labor Migration on Children’s Mental Health in Rural China

“…Zhou et al (2014) evaluated the influence of parents' absence on children's Chinese scores and math scores and found that left-behind boys had significantly worse scores in math and Chinese, but no such effect was found for girls. Liu et al (2018) estimated the heterogenous effects of returning migrant parents on the academic achievement of rural children. Their outcomes show that in terms of school performance, girls benefitted more than boys from the return of migrant parents.…”

Do rural migrant parents intend to settle in cities? Impacts of childcare strategies, split households, migration duration, and distance

“…In China, Fan (2008, p. 92) found that grandparents are good caregivers for preschool-age children, but older leftbehind children need more direct supervision from their parents. A growing body of research has indicated that having parents who migrate has a significant and negative impact on the development of left-behind children in rural China, especially in terms of school engagement (Wen and Lin, 2012), academic outcomes (Li et al, 2017;Liu et al, 2018), subjective wellbeing (Chai et al, 2019) and mental health (Zhang et al, 2019). Many rural parents therefore choose to reunite with their children in cities in order to provide direct and intensive parental care.…”

Immediate and longer-term changes in mental health of children with parent–child separation experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Social isolation and high physical and psychosocial deprivation increase their risk of mental health outcomes [ 11 , 43 ]. In China, some migrant parents choose to return home when their children start school (around age 6) to support their children emotionally and help them succeed in school [ 16 ]. Previous studies have shown that children who experienced parent–child separation are at a high risk of developing psychological problems during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 34 ] and after lifting the restrictions [ 25 ].…”