Parental migration, nurturing care, and early social-emotional development of children in rural China

Abstract

Around one-third of children experience separation from parents and absence of parental care due to parental migration in rural China. Despite numerous studies on left-behind children, little is known about early social-emotional development of those who experience parental migration in the first three years. This study explored whether and why parental migration is associated with children's early social-emotional development. We used data of 2,247 children aged 3–35 months with various parental migration statuses who were enrolled in a cross-sectional survey conducted in six counties of northern and southern China in 2013. Social-emotional problems were assessed by the Ages & Stages Questionnaires: Social-Emotional. A structural equation model (SEM) was employed to explore the pathways linking parental migration to children's early social-emotional problems in which family economics, substitute caregivers’ education, depressive symptoms and nurturing care practices were measured as mediators. We found that the prevalence of social-emotional problems in children with non-migrant parents and with migrant fathers was 17.4% and 19.9% respectively, with no significant difference between them. The prevalence in children with both migrant parents was 27.2%, which was significantly higher than that in children cared for by mothers (adjusted OR 1.43 [95%CI 1.02, 1.99]). The SEM results show that substitute caregivers’ lower education and more depressive symptoms and the consequent more negative parenting practices than mothers accounted for the increased risk of social-emotional problems among children with both migrant parents compared to those with non-migrant mothers. These findings imply a need of a multi-dimensional intervention framework to support these children and their families.