The Influence of Parents Going Out to Work on the Performance of Children’s Compulsory Education – Evidence From China

Abstract

This paper uses the China Education Tracking Panel Data (CEPS) to analyze the impact of parents' migrant workers on the performance of compulsory education for left-behind children. The study found that migrant workers have a significant negative impact on the performance of left-behind children in compulsory education. Although the income of the family can be improved after the parents go out to work, and the educational performance of the left-behind children is positively affected, it is still not enough to make up for the negative impact of the parents not being around. The paper also finds that the negative impact of parents going out to work on the educational performance of left-behind children may come from the pressure of parents' high educational expectations. When the father went out to work, the restraints on the left-behind children are weakened, and exacerbating the impact of the bad peer effect on the left-behind children. After using the PSM to exclude the self-selection problem and replace the score variable to do robustness test, the conclusions of this paper can be considered to be robust and significant.