Parent migration and rural preschool children's early academic and social skill trajectories in China: Are ‘left-behind’ children really left behind?

Abstract

We examined early trajectories for academic and social skills among four groups of rural, preschool-attending, children in the Guangdong province of China: Village children (N = 176) who remained in a rural village and lived with both parents, Migrant children (N = 79) who migrated with their work-seeking parents to live in an urban area, Partially-left-behind children (N = 63) who lived with one parent in a rural village while the other parent migrated to the city for work, and Completely-left-behind children (N = 57) who stayed in a rural village with relatives while both parents migrated to the city for work. Children (n = 375) were individually assessed for social skills, vocabulary, executive functioning, Chinese character reading, and math at four time points over their last two years before formal schooling. For all academic outcomes at exit of preschool, completely-left-behind children showed the lowest performance compared to other groups. Children who remained at home with their parents did better than completely-leftbehind children on all outcomes at the final time point except for vocabulary. Migrant children generally performed better than other groups. Partially-left-behind children showed strong growth and final performance in executive functioning compared to other groups. In sum, while migration to the city appears to be associated with enhanced early academic learning for rural children, completely-left-behind children appeared to be at greatest risk. Results are interpreted in terms of current policies in China aimed at improving early childhood services in rural areas.