Parental migration, sibling migration, and the educational outcomes of children left behind in rural China

Hui Qiu, Xiao Liang and Dan Sun

Children and Youth Services Review, 2024, vol. 157, issue C

Abstract: In the appearance of massive rural–urban migration in China, there is an increasing number of left-behind children in rural areas. Extensive literature has examined the impacts of parental migration on the educational and cognitive development of rural left-behind children and had mixed findings. However, the influence of sibling migration and the potential channels have been mostly omitted in previous research. This study aims to evaluate the associations between parental and sibling migration experience and rural left-behind children’s educational outcomes through the channels of remittances and children’s time allocation, and explores gender differences in the overall association and particular channels. We utilize data from the 2014 and 2018 waves of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and include 2,313 children aged 10–15 in rural China. We propose a conceptual framework and apply structural equation models to identify the overall effects and channels through which parental and sibling migration experience might affect rural left-behind children’s educational expectations and cognitive test scores. Our results show that sibling migration experience harms rural left-behind children more than parental migration experience, and the negative effects are especially pronounced to girls. Remittance sent back home partially offset the negative effects of parental and sibling migration experience on rural children's educational expectations.

Keywords: Educational outcomes; Parental migration; Sibling migration; Remittance; Time allocation; Left-behind children (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740923005881
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:157:y:2024:i:c:s0190740923005881

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.107392

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().