Caregivers’ parenting beliefs, practices, and child developmental outcomes: Evidence from randomized controlled trials in rural China

Lei Wang, Dingjing Jiang, Siqi Zhang and Scott Rozelle

World Development, 2024, vol. 178, issue C

Abstract: To better understand the impacts of parenting interventions (e.g., parental training of psychosocial stimulating activities) on child developmental outcomes and design effective policies to benefit young children, it is essential to identify the mechanisms through which the interventions work. To this end, this paper presents the results of two randomized controlled trials that offered home visitation, parenting trainings to 435 households (with 527 households as the control group) in 174 villages across three provinces in China. The findings from the randomized controlled trials showed that the interventions significantly improved child cognitive development and had a positive effect on the primary caregivers’ parenting practices and their parenting beliefs. The analysis suggests three possible mechanisms through which the parenting interventions affected child cognitive development: changing the parenting beliefs of the primary caregivers, shifting the parenting practices of the primary caregivers, and improving the primary caregivers’ parenting beliefs, thus fostering better parenting practices.

Keywords: Parenting intervention; Child development; Randomized controlled trial; Parenting beliefs and practices; rural China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:178:y:2024:i:c:s0305750x24000664

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106596

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