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The Effects of Parental Absence on Children Development: Evidence from Left-Behind Children in China

Parental care in early childhood is viewed as one of the most important factors that help foster children’s abilities. Using two nationally representative datasets collected in China, this paper examines the effects of parental absence on the short-term in-school outcomes and long-term educational a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Mao, Mingzhi, Zang, Lijun, Zhang, Haifeng
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7559575/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32957472
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186770
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author Mao, Mingzhi
Zang, Lijun
Zhang, Haifeng
author_facet Mao, Mingzhi
Zang, Lijun
Zhang, Haifeng
author_sort Mao, Mingzhi
collection PubMed
description Parental care in early childhood is viewed as one of the most important factors that help foster children’s abilities. Using two nationally representative datasets collected in China, this paper examines the effects of parental absence on the short-term in-school outcomes and long-term educational achievement of left-behind children. The results show that parental absence is negatively associated with the development of left-behind children. Left-behind children have a lower cognitive test score and academic test score, and they are also less likely to attend a college. In particular, a mother’s absence seems to have persistent negative effects on children’s development. Mechanism analyses show that parental absence may result in a less healthy mental status of children and reduce children’s efforts in class. However, we do not find significant evidence that the exposure to left-behind children in class lowers the in-school outcomes of children.
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spelling pubmed-75595752020-10-29 The Effects of Parental Absence on Children Development: Evidence from Left-Behind Children in China Mao, Mingzhi Zang, Lijun Zhang, Haifeng Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Parental care in early childhood is viewed as one of the most important factors that help foster children’s abilities. Using two nationally representative datasets collected in China, this paper examines the effects of parental absence on the short-term in-school outcomes and long-term educational achievement of left-behind children. The results show that parental absence is negatively associated with the development of left-behind children. Left-behind children have a lower cognitive test score and academic test score, and they are also less likely to attend a college. In particular, a mother’s absence seems to have persistent negative effects on children’s development. Mechanism analyses show that parental absence may result in a less healthy mental status of children and reduce children’s efforts in class. However, we do not find significant evidence that the exposure to left-behind children in class lowers the in-school outcomes of children. MDPI 2020-09-17 2020-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7559575/ /pubmed/32957472 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186770 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Mao, Mingzhi
Zang, Lijun
Zhang, Haifeng
The Effects of Parental Absence on Children Development: Evidence from Left-Behind Children in China
title The Effects of Parental Absence on Children Development: Evidence from Left-Behind Children in China
title_full The Effects of Parental Absence on Children Development: Evidence from Left-Behind Children in China
title_fullStr The Effects of Parental Absence on Children Development: Evidence from Left-Behind Children in China
title_full_unstemmed The Effects of Parental Absence on Children Development: Evidence from Left-Behind Children in China
title_short The Effects of Parental Absence on Children Development: Evidence from Left-Behind Children in China
title_sort effects of parental absence on children development: evidence from left-behind children in china
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7559575/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32957472
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186770
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