Abstract
Background: a few studies have been conducted which describe health status of Migrant Peasant Worker’s children. However, there are no studies which compare physiques of MPW’s children with those of rural children and urban children. Also, few studies have been done on physiques of MPW’s children as it relates to socioeconomic factors in China. Methods: We examined across-sectional study of 2457 children from Shanghai and Wuhu city in 2011. First, we compared the differences of physiques among three groups by ANOVA. Second, ANCOVA were applied to analyze the associations between the physiques and socioeconomic factors by taking physiques as dependent variables. The independent variables included socioeconomic factors such as the parental occupation, the parental education and family monthly income. Third, ANCOVA were used to assess differences in physiques among the three groups by adjusting socioeconomic factors. Results: There were significant differences in all physical indexes, no matter they were boys and girls (P < .001). Children’s physiques of MPW were smaller than those of children of Citizen in Shanghai City. Among all ages, regardless of gender, Children’s physiques of MPW were bigger than those of children of rural resident. In both boys and girls all indexes displayed statistically significant associations with parental occupations (P < .001). There were strong associations between parental education and all physical indexes (P < .001). Family monthly income was found to be significantly associated with children’s physiques (P < .001). In both boys and girls, there were strong associations between physique and group in all indexes (P < .001), but physiques hardly had any associations with socioeconomic factors. Conclusions: We find that physiques of MPW’s children were smaller than those of children of citizen in Shanghai City, and physiques of MPW’s children were bigger than those of children of rural resident. There are strong associations between physiques and socioeconomic factors.
Highlights
With the rapid urbanization in China, it was extremely obvious that there was shortage of labor in southeast coastal cities
Physiques of MPW’s children were smaller than children of citizen in Shanghai City, and MPW’s children had bigger physiques than rural children. The former finding is consistent with previous studies that reported MPW’s children were smaller than urban children (Bradley, Kelleher, 1992; Chen et al, 2010; Chen et al, 2006). The latter finding is consistent with the results from a previous study (Yan, 2005) We found that there were strong associations between physiques and each socioeconomic factor such as family income, parental occupation and parental education
By the ANCOVA in which both socioeconomic factors and groups were taken as independent variables and age was taken as a covariate, strong associations between physiques and group were identified, there were hardly associations between socioeconomic factors and physiques
Summary
With the rapid urbanization in China, it was extremely obvious that there was shortage of labor in southeast coastal cities. Since the economic reform and Opening-Up Policy in China, the spare labor force was transferring from rural areas to cities, and the population of the labor has consistently increased. The term “Migrant Peasant Worker” (MPW), referred to those who migrate from rural areas to urban areas seeking employment opportunities. Most MPWs children accompanied their parents to the cities. At the end of 2009, the number of MPWs has reached over 145 millions (State Statistic Bureau, 2009). The number of MPWs’ children less than years old was estimated at millions, and about 380 thousand MPWs’ children were in Shanghai City in 2005 (Xiong, 2010)
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