Parenting Knowledge, Parental Investments, and Early Childhood Development in Rural Households in Western China

Jingdong Zhong, Yang He, Jingjing Gao, Tianyi Wang and Renfu Luo
Additional contact information
Jingdong Zhong: School of Economics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Yang He: China Center for Agricultural Policy, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Jingjing Gao: China Center for Agricultural Policy, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Tianyi Wang: China Center for Agricultural Policy, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 8, 1-11

Abstract: This paper investigates the relationships between caregivers’ parenting knowledge and early childhood development, based on a survey conducted in 1715 rural households in 100 villages located in an undeveloped rural area of western China. The results find that, first, caregivers’ parenting knowledge is positively and significantly associated with children’s development outcomes, including cognitive, language, motor, and social–emotional development; second, caregivers’ parental investments significantly mediate the link between parenting knowledge and early childhood development; third, in contrast with other parental investments, play materials (in terms of variety and quantity) and play activities in the households are the strongest mediators. Our findings might be informative for policy makers to design policies targeted to foster human capital formation in rural China.

Keywords: parenting knowledge; parental investments; early childhood development; human capital; rural China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/8/2792/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/8/2792/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:8:p:2792-:d:347170

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().