Left-Behind Children’s Cognitive Development in China: Gain in Financial Capital Versus Loss in Parental Capital

Abstract

This study proposes a framework combining economic improvement and the disruption within family interactions to disentangle the effect of parental migration on left-behind children’s development. We proposed a concept of parental capital, which refers to the cultivated interactions between the primary caregiver and the child. The disruption effect is theorized here as loss in parental capital, that the decrease in frequency and stability of interactions between children and the primary caregiver caused by parental migration. This research draws on the 2012 China Urbanization and Labor Migration Survey (CULMS), a nationally representative dataset including a substantial migrant population. Our results show that the loss in parental capital mediates almost all of the adverse effects of parental absence. In addition, parental capital doesn’t significantly mediate the effect of father migration on children’s cognitive development, but it has substantial explaining power in the disadvantage of children with dual-parent migration.

Family Resilience in the Context of Migration: Exploring the Lived Experience of Filipino Migrants' School-Going Older Adolescent Children

“…A family member leaving home is a significant life event, potentially causing tension and disequilibrium. Its impacts on family members, such as children, are well studied, as well as how migration yields stress and other practical and emotional concerns to the family and its members [2,22,23,24,25]. An emerging concept referred to as parental capital-i.e., nurturing interactions between the parent and the child-is challenged in migration, leading to adverse consequences due to parental absence [22].…”

The Long-Time Consequences of Parental Early Left-Behind Event on the Human Capital of Rural Children in China

“…These impacts have mixed positive, negative, or neutral. Speci cally, research has veri ed the in uences on various domains, including educational achievement [1,2], cognitive or noncognitive skills [3][4][5], nutrition and physical health [6,7], along with psychological well-being [8,9]. Meanwhile, the literature has rapidly accumulated substantial evidence that highlights the critical connections between childhood event and a wide array of growth consequences in offspring throughout lives [10,11].…”