The Effect of Boarding on the Mental Health of Primary School Students in Western Rural China

Bin Tang, Yue Wang, Yujuan Gao, Shijin Wu, Haoyang Li, Yang Chen and Yaojiang Shi
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Yue Wang: Center for Experimental Economics in Education (CEEE), Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710119, China
Yujuan Gao: Center for Experimental Economics in Education (CEEE), Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710119, China
Shijin Wu: Center for Experimental Economics in Education (CEEE), Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710119, China
Haoyang Li: Center for Experimental Economics in Education (CEEE), Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710119, China
Yang Chen: School of Foreign Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-17

Abstract: Based on the panel data of 20,594 fourth- and fifth-grade students in the western provinces A and B in China, this paper analyzed the effect of boarding at school on the mental health of students using a combination of the propensity score matching (PSM) and difference-in-differences (DID) methods. The results showed that boarding had no significant effect on the mental health of students, but the tendency of loneliness among boarding school students was increased. Heterogeneity analysis found that fifth-grade students whose parents had both left home to work were more likely to have poorer mental health when boarding. This paper has essential policy significance for guiding rural primary schools to improve the mental health of boarding school students, especially left-behind children.

Keywords: boarding school student; mental health; rural China; difference-in-differences; matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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