Health Affairs
Volume 34, Issue 11, 2015, Pages 1964-1971

China's left-behind children: Impact of parental migration on health, nutrition, and educational outcomes (Article)

Zhou C. , Sylvia S. , Zhang L.* , Luo R. , Yi H. , Liu C. , Shi Y. , Loyalka P. , Chu J. , Medina A. , Rozelle S.
  • a School of Public Health, Shandong University, China
  • b School of Economics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
  • c Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  • d Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  • e Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  • f Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  • g Center for Experimental Economics in Education, Shaanxi Normal University, China
  • h Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford UniversityCA, United States
  • i Department of Sociology, Stanford University, United States
  • j Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford UniversityCA, United States
  • k Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford UniversityCA, United States

Abstract

China's rapid development and urbanization have induced large numbers of rural residents to migrate from their homes to urban areas in search of better job opportunities. Parents typically leave their children behind with a caregiver, creating a new, potentially vulnerable subpopulation of left-behind children in rural areas. A growing number of policies and nongovernmental organization efforts target these children. The primary objective of this study was to examine whether leftbehind children are really the most vulnerable and in need of special programs. Pulling data from a comprehensive data set covering 141,000 children in ten provinces (from twenty-seven surveys conducted between 2009 and 2013), we analyzed nine indicators of health, nutrition, and education.We found that for all nine indicators, left-behind children performed as well as or better than children living with both parents. However, both groups of children performed poorly on most of these indicators. Based on these findings, we recommend that special programs designed to improve health, nutrition, and education among left-behind children be expanded to cover all children in rural China. © 2015 Project HOPE-The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.

Author Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Index Keywords

Vulnerable Populations vulnerable population education Parents China Child Nutrition Disorders Population Dynamics human rural population nutritional disorder Surveys and Questionnaires Humans Adolescent male preschool child female Child, Preschool questionnaire child health nutrition major clinical study Child parent
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84949189952&doi=10.1377%2fhlthaff.2015.0150&partnerID=40&md5=16e54564929145a6a58531151fe1dc88
DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0150
ISSN: 02782715
Cited by: 55
Original Language: English