The impacts of parental migration on children’s subjective well-being in rural china: a double-edged sword

ABSTRACT

The emerging problem of left-behind children has attracted mounting academic and policy attention. Prior studies primarily cast light on left-behind children’s education, health, and behavior, while their subjective well-being is much less understood yet. Based on a nationally representative sample of rural children aged 10–15 in 2014, we examine the impacts of different types of parental migration on children’s subjective well-being and how these affects vary between boys and girls. The results show that parental migration is a double-edged sword: children from both-parent migrant families report compromised life satisfaction and relationship quality compared with those in integral families, and mother-only migration significantly lowers children’s subjective health. On the flip side, father-only migration enhances children’s aspiration for attaining college, an encouraging effect that is even stronger than that of parental education and family income. These effects are heterogeneous by children’s gender: boys seem to be more susceptible to the disruptive effects of both-parent migration; mother-only migration effectively promotes girls’ educational aspiration while father-only migration promotes boys’. This study portrays a comprehensive image of left-behind children. Relaxation of hukou restriction, equal access to education, and revitalization of rural economies are imperative to improve the well-being of left-behind children.

Abbreviations: LBC: Left-behing children; SWB: subjective well-being

KEYWORDS:

• Left-behind children
• parental migration
• subjective well-being
• China

Acknowledgments

We sincerely acknowledge the valuable comments and suggestions by Professor Yuan Ren, Professor Kam Wing Chan, and Nancy Johnston Place. This study is supported by China Social Science Foundation: [Grant Numbers 17CRK023 and 17ARK002], China Natural Science Foundation: [Grant Numbers 71490734 and 71273057], and research fund from School of Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A later joint report by NBS, UNICEF China, and UNFPA (2017) presents a figure of 40.51 million rural left-behind children based on the same 2015 mini-Census.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Social Science Foundation of China [Grant Numbers 17CRK023, 17ARK002]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant Numbers 71490734, 71273057]; and research fund from School of Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University.