Order 625985: human development

EDHD-320.0501

October 10, 2017

“Effects of Parents’ Migration on the Education of Children Left Behind in Rural China” by Minhui Zhou, Rachel Murphy, and Ran Tao

The first research question is: what is the impact of parents’ migration status on children’s educational outcomes? The available literature shows a mixed picture concerning whether children whose parents have moved are benefited in their education, while others willhave fouind that they are disadvantaged. The second research question involveconcerns the impact of both the parental absence and also the post-migration parental structures on children’s educational outcomes. As evidenced by this questions, most of the family structures research which has been undertaken by migration studies scholars have scrutinized the impacts of single-parent parenthood on children’s educational performance and attainment. The third and last research question pertains to the ways in which the effects of parental migration and the effects of post-migration parenthood may vary depending on the children’s sex. This literature also draws some insights into the sex variations and the effects of parental migration on children’s educational results.

Data for this study was collected by sampling method. The final sample involved 1,010 children: 53% were from Anhui province and 47% in Jiangxi province. In case of theFor 304 children, both parents were at home while the other 706 children had a least 15 who had migrated. Also, there were 997 primary school students, which is, in grades 4 and 6 representing 69% and 313 junior high school students representing 31%. Boys were 533, where 55% of the sample that shows the girls numbered 457. Children in the sample were aged between 8 and 17, with an average age of 12 years. The independent variables for this study are parents’ migration status which was designated as one of three status;types: both parents are at home, one parent is a migrant, and both parents are migrants. Dependent variables are the children’s educational performance, which is measured by the average of children’s test scores for the year 2009 and 2010 in Chinese and mathematics. Comment by Susan: ? what type of sampling method? Comment by Susan: ? (is the 5 a typo?) Comment by Susan: unclear wording

This article draws on an original cross-sectional survey of 1,010 children and their parents in highly migratory locations of Anhui and Jiangxi province located in China’s interior. It employs inclination score matching, a skill which mitigates indigeneity, to examine the impact of parental migration and post-migration responsibility arrangements on the children’s educational performance as measured by test scores for Chinese and mathematics. One major finding is that the educational performance of the children is adversely impacted by the parental migration only when both the parents migrate or when or in the instance that a non-parent guardian is a principal caretaker. Consequentially, longer duration of the parental absence is interlinked with poorer educational performance. The migration of two parents’ significantly negatively impacts the educational performance of boys, with no significant performance of girls as based on the findings we argue that rather than support left-behind children within the landscape, the long-term strategy ought to remove the institutional distractions which hinder resettlement in the cities. Comment by Susan: could be deleted; already conveyed earlier Comment by Susan: very close paraphrase from article!! need to be sure to fully put into your own words (and, in this case, this wasn’t really critical info to provide)…ok, after looking at actual abstract, I see that this is taken almost directly from the abstract, as are other parts below… Comment by Susan: this is also almost directly copied from the abstract1

The findings/interpretations of the researchers seem believable based on the outcomes of their research. However, there might be some other factors that have affected the educational performance of the children while they are doing their research. Factors such as the social environment in school, studying techniques, resources that they may use for studying, etc. may have affected their findings. Other data like how often do the parents and the children see each other should have been collected. I think that the researchers should do the same research in other countries with different culture because they might find other interesting findings as cultures in every country operate differently. Another thing that they can do is that they can perform research in different classes of people based on their income as it may also contribute to the educational performance of the child. Comment by Susan: T

Work cited

Zhou, M., Murphy, R., & Tao, R. (2014). Effects of parents' migration on the education of

children left behind in rural China. Population and Development Review, 40(2), 273-292.