Timing and duration of paternal migration and the educational attainment of left‐behind children: Evidence from rural China

• Author: Sophie Xuefei Wang
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• Date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12572

REGULAR ARTICLE

Timing and duration of paternal migration and the

educational attainment of left‐behind children:

Evidence from rural China

Sophie Xuefei Wang

Central University of Finance and

Economics, Beijing, China

Correspondence

Sophie Xuefei Wang, China Center for

Human Capital and Labor Market

Research, Central University of Finance

and Economics, 39 Xueyuan South Road,

Haidian District, Beijing 100081, China.

Email: sophiewang2004@gmail.com

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between the migration

of men from rural China and the educational attainment of

their left‐behind children. The importance of migratory tim-

ing and duration are addressed. Using survey data, the study

found that compared with rural children of nonmigrant par-

ents, rural children of migrant fathers have a lower probabil-

ity of being enrolled in school. In addition, the relationship

between migratory timing, duration, and school enrollment

shows an interesting pattern; children whose fath ers migrated

when they were infants are more likely to be enrolled in

school, but children whose fathers migrated before their birth

or after they reached school age are less likely to be enrolled

in school. Possible explanations for this pattern are provided.

JEL CLASSIFICATION

I25, J13, J61, O15

KEYWORDS

migration, education, human capital, children, timing, duration

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INTRODUCTION

Since the economic reform and opening up in the 1980s, China has experienced significant eco-

nomic development and growth, especially in urban areas and in the eastern coastal regions.

Because of the uneven distribution of incomes and job opportunities, rural residents have got strong

incentives to migrate to urban areas. The past two decades witnessed a massive influx of rural

migrants as the Hukou system was relaxed in the mid‐1990s. In 2000, the number of rural migrants

was estimated to be 78 million, and it nearly doubled to 153 million in 2010, accounting for 12% of

the total population in China (Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (CNBS), 2000–2010). As a

DOI: 10.1111/rode.12572

Rev Dev Econ. 2019;23:727–744. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rode © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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result of this migration, 61 million children under the age of 18 were left behind in rural China in

2010, accounting for 37.7% of all the rural children in China. Among them, 37.6 million were of

school age (ages 6–17), 82.56% of whom had migrant fathers (Duan, Lv, Guo, & Wang, 2013).

These left‐behind children are vulnerable without the care and protection of their migrant

fathers. They are more susceptible to being victims of crimes, psychological problems, accidents,

and injuries, and they are also prone to conduct asocial and criminal activities, compared with rural

children in nonmigrant households (Chen, Liang, & Ostertag, 2017; Fu, Xue, & Zhou, 2017; Lee

& Park, 2010; Liu, Li, & Ge, 2009; Wu, Li, & Chen, 2016; Zhan, Li, Liu, & Zhang, 2014). How-

ever, there is no consensus on how paternal migration affects left‐behind children's education in

rural China (Bai et al., 2018; Chen, Huang, Rozelle, Shi, & Zhang, 2009; Lee & Park, 2010; Li,

Wang, & Nie, 2017; Meng & Yamauchi, 2017; Wang, 2014; Zhao, Yu, Wang, & Glauben, 2014).

For example, Bai et al. (2018) and Chen et al. (2009) found that paternal migration had significant

and positive impacts on the academic performance of left‐behind children. Conversely, Meng a nd

Yamauchi (2017) and Zhao et al. (2014) found that paternal migration had significantly negative

effects on the academic performance of left‐behind children. There also exist studies that found no

significant effect of paternal migration on left‐behind children's education (Li et al., 2017).

This paper studies the relationship between paternal migration and the educational attainment of

the children they leave behind. I especially examine the role of migratory timing and duration.

Economics of education suggests that schooling decision and educational outcomes not only

depend on current inputs, but past inputs also matter. Therefore, both current parental migration

and historical parental migration may affect a child's schooling, and it is important to investigate

whether there is a cumulative effect of parental migration on a child's educational outcomes. In

addition, this effect may not be linear, and thus, it is vital to examine the trajectory of the effect of

parental migration occurred at different stages of the child's life. I focus on paternal migration

because fathers are much more likely to migrate for work in China owing to discrimination against

migrant women over the age of 30 in the process of urban employers’recruitment, the patriarchal

social norm in rural China,

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and the land redistribution practice

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(Jacka, 2009).

This paper makes four main contributions to the mig ration literature. First, the existing literature

on the relationships between parental migration and a child's educational outcomes has largely focused

on the contemporaneous effect of current migration. This study extends the literature by explicitly

examining the role of the timing and duration of the whole history of paternal migration. To the best

of my knowledge, this article is the first to study the effect of the timing of parental migration on

children's education using Chinese data. Second, previous literature suggests that the effects of pater-

nal migration and maternal migration are different on children and the effect on boys and girls can

also be different, so I isolate paternal migration from the other migrant household types and focus on

the relationship between paternal migration and the educational attainment of the left‐behind children

that complements the more general study on parental migration in China (Chang, Dong, & MacPhail,

2011; Hu, 2012; Lee, 2011; Lu, 2012; Meyerhoefer & Chen, 2011; Song, Chen, & Zhang, 2018; Wu

& Zhang, 2017; Zhang, Behrman, Fan, Wei, & Zhang, 2014). In addition to examining the relation-

ship for the full sample, I also look at boys and girls separately and I do find different results for the

two gender groups. Third, by examining the consequence of paternal absence as a result of labor

migration, this study complements the literature on the relationships between parental absence owing

to divorce and death and children's educational outcome (Abdelnoor & Hollins, 2004; Ermisch &

Francesconi, 2000; Santrock, 1972). Finally, this study sheds light on the consequences of rural–urban

migration on the population left‐behind in China and provides some policy implications.

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