The impact of parental migration on depression of children: new evidence from rural China

Abstract

Using data from a 2017 survey in western China, we examine whether remittances received from migrant family members and household work burden play moderating roles in children’s depression. We also explore the extent to which interpersonal factors (parent-child communication and parenting practices) and child’s intrapersonal personality trait (assessed by self-esteem) mediate the impact of parental migration on children’s depression. Results show that receipt of remittances significantly helps mitigate their depression. Regardless of children’s left-behind-status, household work burden significantly increases their levels of depression. Levels of depression among children left-behind by both parents are mediated by parent-child communication, parental responsiveness, and children’s self-esteem. Findings reveal significant social costs due to parental migration in terms of child development. The policy implications of our findings are discussed.

Acknowledgements

The project is supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (15AZD053) whose support is gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank comments from anonymous reviewers, as well as suggestions from the Editor.

Notes

1 1US$= 6.95 Yuan on March 8, 2020.

2 To save space, results from OLS regressions predicting parent-child communication, parental responsiveness of primary caregiver, and self-esteem are not presented in the paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zhongshan Yue

Zhongshan Yue is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, Xi’an Jiaotong University. He is Deputy Director of Xi'an Jiaotong University—The Chinese University of Hong Kong Joint Research Center on Migration. His research areas are across migration and immigration, migrant integration, urbanization, and social demography. He published a book titled “Social Integration of Rural-Urban Migrants in China: Current Status, Determinants, and Consequences” in 2015. His recent journal publications appear in Urban Studies, Asian Population Studies, Population Research and Policy Review, and Population, Space and Place.

Zai Liang

Zai Liang is a Professor of Sociology at State University of New York at Albany and Changjiang Scholar Visiting Chair Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University. He is the former chair of Asia and Asian American section of the American Sociological Association. Since 2004, he has been serving as Director and Co-Director of Urban China Research Network. His main research interests are migration/immigration, urbanization and urban sociology. He pursues these interests in the contexts of the United States, China and Africa.

Qian Wang

Qian Wang is a graduate student at the Department of Sociology, Xi’an Jiaotong University.

Xinyin Chen

Xinyin Chen is a Professor at Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. He is the past-president of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development (ISSBD). His research focuses on children and adolescents’ socioemotional functioning and its role in social, school, and psychological adjustment from a contextual-developmental perspective. He is interested in the developmental processes of social competence, shyness-inhibition, and aggression, and dispositional/biological and socialization factors that are involved in the processes. He has conducted, in collaboration with his international colleagues, a series of longitudinal projects in Chinese, North American, and several other societies.