Population, Space and Place
Volume 25, Issue 8, 2019

Left-behind villages, left-behind children: Migration and the cognitive achievement of rural children in China (Article)

Xie W.* , Sandberg J. , Huang C. , Uretsky E.
  • a Department of Global Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States
  • b Department of Global Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States
  • c Department of Global Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States, School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, China
  • d Department of Anthropology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, United States

Abstract

Although the potential effects of migration on the cognitive development of children in origin communities reflect both household- and community-level processes, few studies have examined how community-level migration affects child cognitive development. By applying multilevel methods to nationally representative data of 2,248 children from 427 villages in China, we examine whether village migration intensity influences child cognitive ability and if so, what accounts for this influence. The findings suggest lower cognitive achievement in communities that experience high migration intensity. Living in a community with a large proportion of people who have migrated away from the community is associated with a 3.57-unit decrease in verbal scores and a 1.54-unit decrease in maths scores, which is equivalent to missing 1.67 and 0.87 years of schooling, respectively. A possible explanation for this effect is the change in demographic composition such that communities are depleted of better educated adults. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Author Keywords

China Migration neighbourhood effect cognitive development Left-behind children

Index Keywords

China cognition rural society village Child Welfare demography neighborhood migration
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85070657501&doi=10.1002%2fpsp.2243&partnerID=40&md5=1c2b44691d9f5d4ea2975fafbe4e8686
DOI: 10.1002/psp.2243
ISSN: 15448444
Cited by: 1
Original Language: English