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ABSTRACT
Extensive research demonstrates the far-reaching impacts of early childhood development (ECD) interventions, including both pre-primary education (PPE) and in-home nurturing. At the same time, a limited understanding of inequalities in ECD exposure across groups of children in many countries poses a fundamental challenge to effective policymaking. This research investigates key factors driving unequal access to PPE and positive parenting for children in China using data from the nationally representative China Family Panel Studies 2010–2018. The research finds substantial and persistent disparities by children’s ethnicity, migration status, household wealth, and mother’s education. While mother’s education dominates variation in both PPE participation and parenting practices, household wealth and ethnicity strongly influence PPE participation but exert less influence than migration status on positive parenting. The research contributes to a deeper understanding of the factors driving inequality in ECD in China, with important implications for targeted policies and programmes in China and beyond.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. UN SDG4.2 stipulates that ‘By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education’.
2. Sansuikanda, qisuikanlao.
3. For a detailed description of the CFPS and its sampling strategy, please see Xie and Hu (Citation2018).
4. This includes children currently on vacation.
5. For brevity, this includes reporting by parents or other primary caregivers in the case of left-behind children.
6. It may be that parents perceive that they have less need or ability to effectively support learning of slightly older children, and/or that they decrease their own inputs for children who entered PPE at age 5, viewing these as substitutes.
7. In terms of other control variables not tabulated herein, age is relatively influential (as 5-year-olds are more likely to participate in PPE compared to younger children), while survey year has very little influence.
8. As expected, age and survey year have limited influence over parenting scores.
9. Sylvia et al. (Citation2021) finds that a home-based parenting program delivered by the NHFPC has been effective in improving several outcomes, including infant cognitive skills and parenting skills.