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Abstract
For much of the past three decades, China has witnessed a dramatic and steady increase in internal migration and thus has a huge population of left-behind children. The impact of childhood left-behind experiences has been carefully studied, but research on the long-term effects of these experiences is generally lacking. Capitalizing on a study of migrant workers conducted in Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions, we extend this line of research by examining how childhood experiences of being left behind by migrant parents affect the behaviors of adults. Our study shows that people with left-behind experiences (1) are more likely to work overtime, which could result from avoidance of close interpersonal interaction after work; (2) spend a larger part of their income on surfing the Internet, indicating that they prefer activities not involving direct contact with other people; and (3) occurring at different stages of life can have varied long-term impacts. This study not only echoes earlier studies on the relationship between family structure and children’s behavioral outcomes, but also provides substantial evidence of the long-term negative effect of childhood left-behind experiences on adults.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
Notes
1 The Delta Region Labor study only selected respondents who “have at most finished college education, have at least migrated across counties, and are currently being employed” (Liu et al. Citation2011).
2 We did not include Hukou type in these models because it is a highly correlated type of hometown; regression models (results not demonstrated in this paper) that included Hukou type yielded consistent results with models with the type of hometown as an independent variable.
3 We used 1:3 matching instead of 1:1 matching to reduce sample loss, referring to Ming and Rosenbaum (Citation2000).
4 Matched data set 1 based on propensity score for left-behind in preschool period, matched data set 2 based on propensity score for left-behind in elementary school period, matched data set 2 based on propensity score for left-behind in middle school period, matched data sets 4 and 5 both based on propensity score for left-behind in any of these three childhood periods.
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Notes on contributors
Zhijun Liu
Zhijun Liu ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the department of sociology at Zhejiang University. He’s specialized in migration study.
Bo Zhou
Bo Zhou ([email protected]) is a post-doctoral fellow of Sun Yat-Sen University. His research interests include intentional and internal migration, globalization and Asian studies.