Abstract
In China, there are an estimated 41 million left-behind children (LBC). The objective of this study was to examine the mental health of current-left-behind children (current-LBC) and previous-left-behind children (previous-LBC) as compared to never-left-behind children (never-LBC), while considering factors like parent-child communication. Children were recruited from schools in rural areas of Anhui province in eastern China. Participants completed a questionnaire focusing on migration status, mental health, and parent-child communication, measured with the validated Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Parent–Adolescent Communication Scale (PACS). Full data were available for 1251 current-, 473 previous-, and 268 never-LBC in Anhui province. After adjusting for all confounding variables, the results showed that both current and previous parental migration was associated with significantly higher mental health difficulties, including aspects of emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity, and total difficulties. Additionally, we found that difficulties communicating with parents were strongly associated with the presence of greater total difficulties in children. Parental migration has an independent, long-lasting negative effect on children. Poor parent-child communication is strongly associated with children’s mental health. These results indicate that parent–child communication is important for the development of children, and interventions are needed to improve migrant parents’ understanding and communication skills with their children.
Highlights
There are over 41 million children aged 18 years or younger who were left behind by their migrant parents in rural China; nearly one in three children in rural areas was left behind [1]
We demonstrated that children of migrant parents, including both current-Left-behind children (LBC) and previous-LBC, are significantly more likely to report higher levels of emotional symptoms, higher levels of conduct problems, and higher levels of hyperactivity than never-LBC
Consistent with most previous studies, the findings of the current study revealed that parental migration has long-term negative impacts on children’s emotional and behavioral problems [35,36]
Summary
There are over 41 million children aged 18 years or younger who were left behind by their migrant parents in rural China; nearly one in three children in rural areas was left behind [1]. Left-behind children (LBC) are children “under 18 who were left behind at their rural communities while one or both of their parents migrated into cities for work, and who have not lived with them for over six months“ [2]. The number of rural–urban migrants is 247 million or 31% of the working population nationally [3]. In China, a number of restrictions on rural-urban migration persist—mainly the hukou household registration system, a place-based public resource distribution and management system which restricts migrants and their. Public Health 2019, 16, 1855; doi:10.3390/ijerph16101855 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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