Abstract
This paper studied the interrelationships between parenting information, family care, and early childhood development (ECD) outcomes. A total of 1787 sample households in rural China were enrolled in a cross-sectional study. A demographic questionnaire, a parenting information questionnaire, the Family Care Indicators (FCIs), and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development version III (BSID-III) were used to measure demographic characteristics, parenting information that the caregiver received, family care, and early development outcomes of the child, respectively. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was then used to estimate the interrelationships. The results showed that family care significantly mediated between parenting information and ECD outcomes. Through family care, one standard deviation (SD) increase in the parenting information was associated with the increase in the child’s four development outcomes (cognition, language, motor, and social–emotion) by 3%, 4%, 4%, and 5% of one SD, respectively. Different measurements of parenting information and different components of family care played different roles in the interrelationships. The key findings of this study are informative for providing early child development services in rural China.
Highlights
Drastic delays in early childhood development (ECD) is a noteworthy problem among children across rural areas in China
This study proposed the corresponding study hypotheses as follows: first, family care plays the mediator role between parenting information and ECD outcomes; second, different measurements of parenting information has different indirect effects through family care; and third, the mediation effects of different components of family care vary across development outcomes
In terms of demographic characteristics, on average, 52% of the children were male, children were less than 15 months old, 4% of the children were born with low weight, caregivers were slightly over 35 years old, caregivers completed about eight years of education, and the child’s mother was the primary caregiver in 69% of the sample households
Summary
Drastic delays in early childhood development (ECD) is a noteworthy problem among children across rural areas in China. 0–3 years old in four major subpopulations of rural China do not reach their full potential in at least one kind of development outcome. 49%, 52%, 30%, and 53% of the children were delayed in cognitive development, language development, motor development, and social–emotional development, respectively. Such early delays are detrimental to these children’s lifetime outcomes, as a growing body of literature has documented the importance of ECD outcomes in many aspects, such as health [2,3], labor market performance [4,5], social mobility [6], and other socioeconomic status (SES). The development delay in early childhood was identified as a potential identifier of the middle-income trap, which could affect sustainable economic development [9].
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