PARENTAL MIGRATION AND CHILDREN’S EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING: A STUDY OF

MIGRANT CHILDREN IN CHINA’S URBAN AREAS

A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty of the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
of Georgetown University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Master of Public Policy

By

Xiaoyi Wang, B.A.

Washington, D.C.
April 10, 2017
Copyright 2017 by Xiaoyi Wang

All Rights Reserved

ii
PARENTAL MIGRATION AND CHILDREN’S EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING: A STUDY OF
MIGRANT CHILDREN IN CHINA’S URBAN AREAS

Xiaoyi Wang, B.A.

Thesis Advisor: Stipica Mudrazija, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

Following the irreversible trend of rural-to-urban migration in China starting from early

1980s, nearly 20 million children have migrated with their parents. Previous studies have mainly

focused on the effect of migration on left-behind children’s emotional health, but few have

addressed this issue on migrant children in urban areas. This paper studies the effect of migration

on migrant children’s emotional well-being in the urban areas in China by comparing four

different family types. Additionally, the paper studies whether migration or the presence of

parents plays a more important role in shaping migrant children’s emotional well-being. This

research uses a national survey data collected in 2012 in 26 provinces for children age 10 to 15

years. Overall, the findings show that migrant children are worse off compared to their native

urban peers while the presence of parents has a positive impact on children’s emotional health.

But this analysis is unable to determine whether migration or parent’s presence is more important

in determining migrant children’s emotional well-being.

iii
 The research and writing of this thesis is
dedicated to my advisor Stipica Mudrazija and Eric Gardner who helped along the way.

Many thanks,
Xiaoyi Wang

iv
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1

2. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................................... 5

2.1 The Role of Migration in Shaping Children’s Emotional Well-being .................................. 5
2.2 The Role of Parental Presence in Children’s Emotional Well-being ................................... 7
2.3 The Present Study ................................................................................................................. 9

3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................................................. 10

3.1 Theoretical Background ...................................................................................................... 10
3.2 Analytic Framework and Hypothesis.................................................................................. 11

4. DATA AND METHODOLOGY.............................................................................................. 14

4.1 Data ..................................................................................................................................... 14
4.2 Variables ............................................................................................................................. 15
4.3 Estimation Strategy ............................................................................................................. 18

5. RESULTS ................................................................................................................................. 20
5.1 Descriptive Statistics........................................................................................................... 20
5.2 Regression Results .............................................................................................................. 23

6. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS ............................................ 32

6.1 Discussion of Results .......................................................................................................... 32
6.2 Limitations .......................................................................................................................... 33
6.3 Policy Implications ............................................................................................................. 34

BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 36

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 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. The Pathways of Migration Status on Children’s Emotional Well-being…………… 12

Figure 2. Children’s Emotional Well-being from Four Family Types………………………… 13

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Distribution of Four Family Types……………………………………………………. 20

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics for Independent and Dependent Variables…………………...... 22

Table 3. Effect of Migration on Children’s Emotional Well-being……………………………. 25

Table 4. Effect of the Presence of Parents on Children’s Emotional Well-being……………… 28

Table 5. Effect of the the Presence of Parents and Migration on Emotional Well-being……… 31

vi
1. INTRODUCTION

Following China’s rapid urbanization and increasing urban and rural disparities, a large

number of rural residents choose to migrate to urban areas to seek employment and earn more

money. According to the 2010 Chinese Population Census, about 250 million people –

approximately 20 percent of the population – were not living at their original places. Migrants

tended to be young and disproportionately male. An official survey (2013) showed that around

45 percent of them were between the ages of 16 and 25, and nearly two-thirds were male, likely

due to the traditional Chinese division of labor by sex.

As the number of migrant laborers has increased, the number of migrant children has also

increased since some parents prefer to bring their children with them to the urban region.

Ministry of Education of China (2012) estimated that in 2012, there were approximately 20

million migrant children 15 years old or under, comprising 13 percent of the country’s entire

child population.

Migrant parents usually face various difficult circumstances – long working hours, low

pay and living in crowded rented rooms, all of which prevent them from taking good care of their

children. Additionally, restrictions under the hukou system1 have excluded migrant children from

having access to public school, health services, and other critical social services in the cities.

This marginalization from social services has an adverse impact on migrant children’s emotional

well-being. Studies (Zhao, 2003; Meng, 2000; Yang, 1999) have shown that migrant children

have higher chances of feeling pressure and low confidence compared with their urban-born

peers. In addition, poor childhood psychological health may lead to lower socioeconomic status

1
The Hukou system is a household registration system administered by Chinese government. A
hukou determines where people are allowed to live and it is also tightly associated with people’s
access to education and health.

1
in adulthood. In return, this low socioeconomic status in adulthood leads to poorer childhood

well-being in the next generation, making it a vicious cycle for the whole society. Considering

the size of the migrant child population in China, relatively little research has been done into the

emotional well-being of this group. To promote the long-term socioeconomic development,

policymakers and government should take actions to take care of this disadvantaged migrant

children group.

Children’s emotional well-being has a significant impact on their choices, behaviors and

how they cope and enjoy life in the long term. As children grow up, they are exposed to a range

of different situations and their emotions then become more complicated. During this period,

parents play a key role in sustaining their children’s healthy emotional development.

Jordan and Graham (2012) describe emotional health of children as how children

experience and express feelings, how they communicate with others, and how they establish and

maintain interpersonal relationships. Emotional health is a critical part of children’s

comprehensive health and well-being. It is the foundation of individual behaviors and

educational attainment. A positive sense of emotional well-being helps children prevent

psychological problems, behavioral problems and mental health problems. Children who are

emotionally healthy are more likely to have early readiness for school, success in school, be

physically healthy, and establish good interpersonal network system. In contrast, children with

mental health problems tend to have lower educational achievements, greater involvement with

the crimes, and poorer physical health and social outcomes overall. Chan (2009) finds that

migrant children who live in cities are often treated as outsiders even though they have lived in

the urban region for a long time. Chan (2009) also points that under the hukou registration

system, migrant children’s rights especially access to health care, public education and

2
development opportunities are seriously restricted, which in turn increases their physical and

psychological problems.

The question I address in this paper is whether parental migration has an impact on

children’s emotional well-being in the urban region. Previous research in this area has mainly

focused on the left-behind children in the rural regions of China and studied the effect of

migration on those children’s education performance and physical health. It is found that parental

migration has a negative effect on left-behind children. However, few studies address the mental

health of migrant children in the urban region. In addition, previous research only focuses on the

relationship between parental migration and their children’s school performance and access to

physical health care, while there has been almost no research on the consequences of migration

for children’s emotional well-being. Childhood psychological problems can lead to lower

socioeconomic status in children’s adulthood.

To undertake my analysis, I use national-level data from China Family Panel Studies to

identify the relationship between parental migration and children’s emotional well-being in

urban region. My hypothesis is 1) migration has a negative effect on migrant children’s

emotional well-being and 2) parents’ presence is positively associated with migrant children’s

emotional well-being. What remains unclear is whether migration or parents’ presence plays a

more important role in shaping migrant children’s emotional. To test the hypothesis, I used a

logit model and ran four regressions, first to test effect of migration, second to test effect of

parents’ presence and finally to test if there is any relationship between migration and parents’

presence.

The rest of paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a brief literature review of

current research on migration and children’s emotional well-being. Section 3 describes the

3
theoretical backgrounds of my research and lists the conceptual framework. Section 4 explains

the data and methodology for the study. Section 5 describes and interprets the main regression

results and section 6 discusses policy implications and offers recommendations for policymakers

and future researchers.

4
2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 The Role of Migration in Shaping Children’s Emotional Well-being

Many studies have been conducted on the effect of migration on children’s emotional

well-being in China. Most of them emphasize the negative effect of migration on migrant

children’s emotional well-being, however, some also find that migration has a positive effect on

migrant children’s emotional health because of the socioeconomic benefits.

Positive Effects

Some studies show that migrant children exhibit less emotional disturbance, better health

conditions and better behaviors. Explanations are that migration stimulates economic growth and

increasing household income provides children with access to better living standards and quality

of life. For example, Hidebrandt (2005) shows that parental migration from Mexico to the United

States has a positive effect on Mexican children’s physical and mental health. He finds that

parental migration increases household income, thus providing children with higher chances to

get access to healthcare, education, and food, potentially increasing children’s happiness and

satisfaction. Another explanation is that migrant children feel that they have more opportunities

and thus have more passion for their future (Lei, 2004).

Negative Effects

Some studies report that parental migration has a negative effect on children’s emotional

well-being. Mao and Zhao (2012) compared local and migrant middle school students living in

Shanghai, finding that migrant children experience lower self-esteem and greater observed

depression. Lou (2008) and Gao (2010) also find that migrant children are likely to experience

greater emotional difficulties compared with their urban born peers. Ren and Treiman (2013)

report that migrant children often face special difficulties in adjusting to new urban environment,

5
having adequate access to health care and public education, and enjoying high quality of

parenting.

Moving to a new place is usually stressful for children because they must learn to get

along with new people, adjust to new rules, deal with the destruction of old friendship networks,

and establish new network. Pan (2006) reports that under the hukou current registration system,

migrant children have limited access to local public schools. Even those who enroll in public

schools are likely to suffer discrimination from teachers and local peers. Diqing Jiang and

Shanmin Peng (2016) finds that urban classmates often look down upon migrant children and

make fun of them as “rural kids of inferior status, seldom talking or playing with them.” This

discrimination has profoundly affected migrant children’s emotions, and thus lose confidence

and happiness.

Yang and Wang (2011) also find that migrant children often experience difficult housing

circumstances. Many migrant children live with their parents in crowded dormitories or cramped

small single room, and the resulting of lack of privacy and limited space is bound to increase

stress. Additionally, migrant parents usually are engaged in physical labor and work very long

hours. Ming-Hsuan Lee (2011) reports that migrant children do not get adequate care and

attention from their parents, leading to alienation and conflicts between parents and children.

This phenomenon has deleterious consequences for migrant children as they feel lonely and not

understood by parents. From all of the evidence, one can easily conclude that migrant children

may be at greater risk of emotional difficulties.

No Effects

Some studies (Rachel, Minhui, and Ran, 2015) show that migration has little influence on

children’s emotional well-being. Beiser (2002) finds no differences between migrant and non-

6
migrant children. According to his study, one explanation is that the quality of parenting is the

strongest predictors of children’s emotional well-being. Following Lee’s idea, no matter whether

parents migrate, as long as they could still provide their children with enough support and care,

children could still remain high level of emotional well-being.

2.2 The Role of Parental Presence in Children’s Emotional Well-being

The presence of parents is one of the most critical factors in shaping children’s emotional

well-being. Amato (2005) reports that single parents are “less emotionally supportive of their

children, have fewer rules, dispense harsher discipline, are more inconsistent in dispensing

discipline, provide less supervision, and engage in more conflict with their children.” Poorer

parenting by single parents has been associated with various negative outcomes of children,

including reduced cognition, emotional problems, conduct problems and problems forming and

maintaining social relationships.

Though there has been little evidence of the relationship between children and absence of

parents in Chinese literature, it is still the case that absence of parents increases the risk of

emotional deficiencies of their children. Lu, Hu and Treman (2012) find that single parents face

more stress, which makes it more difficult for them to provide high quality parenting. This could

in turn increase the stress among their children and increase children’s chances of depression and

low self-esteem.

Migration is often related to the absence of parents. Yeoh and Lam (2006) find that

children from mother-only migrant family have the lowest level of emotional well-being relative

to children from migrant families with both parents and father-only migrant family. They find

that children from mother-only migrant family tend to have higher levels of depression, low self-

esteem and anxiety.

7
 Some Chinese studies investigate why children of lone migrant mothers are much more

likely to have emotional difficulties than all other children. Lou (2004) finds that when married

women migrate and leave their husbands behind, families have higher chances of experiencing a

series of vulnerability, and increasing psychological pressure for their children due to lack of

adequate care and love. Another possible explanation is that mothers are most attached to their

children but mothers in mother-only migrant families suffer the most pressure as they take full

responsibility for the care of whole family and thus have limited capacity to pay much attention

on children’s emotional well-being, making children feel lonelier. In addition, mothers are

usually more vulnerable economically than fathers, and once they face difficulties, the family

atmosphere could be depreciating, which creates a discouraging way for their children.

Current Chinese studies mainly focus on comparing the well-being of migrant children

with one migrant parent and two migrant parents and find that the former experience more severe

emotional deficits than the latter. For example, Su’s study (2013) shows that migrant children

with two migrant parent have higher levels of life satisfaction than migrant children with only

one migrant parent. One explanation is that an intact family provides children with a feeling of

safety and belongingness.

In sum, the literature on China’s parental migration and its effect on children’s emotional

well-being mainly focuses on left-behind children in rural areas and few studies address the topic

of migrant children in urban areas. In addition, most research focuses on the effect of migration

on children’s education performance and physical health while few study its effect on children’s

emotional health.

8
2.3 The Present Study

This paper will contribute to current literature by drawing attention to migrant children in

urban region and implementing a quantitative analysis on the effect of migration on children’s

emotional well-being. This thesis will compare children from four family types and use logit

model to test the actual effect of migration, parents’ presence and the relationship between these

two factors. As mentioned earlier, current literature either focuses on left-behind children or on

the education attainment and physical health. My study will be one among the firs to address the

effect of migration on migrant children in the urban region and provide recommendations for

policymakers.

9
3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

3.1 Theoretical Background

Compared with their urban-born peers, migrant children in China do not enjoy equal

access to education, health and social services. Tania (2010) reports that China’s tens of millions

of migrant children are among the country’s most vulnerable, owing to a registration that divides

the country’s citizens in rural and urban regions. For example, Chinese children are entitled to

public education, but only children registered in the locales where they live can get into school.

Migrant children without registration do not have access to local school. Even those who attend

public schools often face discrimination from their local peers or teachers, leading them to have

emotional difficulties such as low self-confidence and depression (Qiang and Treiman, 2013). In

addition, the socio-economic inequalities widen the gap between native urban children and

migrant children.

Assimilation theory indicates that even though migrant parents along with their children

in urban areas face various difficulties including long work hours with low pay, discrimination

from native urban people, and lack of access to social resources, they will gradually find a way

to resort to social resources such as education and health services, and finally adapt to the new

urban environment (Xie, 2011).

Beginning from the perspective of assimilation theory, this thesis studies whether the

rural-to-urban migration has a positive impact on migrant children because despite the

difficulties, migrant children can still figure out a way to adapt to new environment and achieve

upward mobility.

However, classical attachment theory shows that children who have a good and stable

relationship with their parents tend to have higher levels of emotional well-being (Mokhtar,

10
2007). In reality, most migrant parents are busy making a living and have little time and energy

to take care of their children, resulting in conflicts and quarrels between parents and children.

Children in such hostile environment tend to have lower level of emotional well-being, including

lack of a feeling of safety and belongingness. Hence, this thesis expects the rural-to-urban

migration to have a negative impact on migrant children’s emotional well-being.

3.2 Analytic Framework and Hypothesis

The previous literature indicates that migration has multiple impacts on different aspects

of children’s emotional health. Figure 1 summarizes these impact and mediating pathways. The

effect of migration on emotional health tends to be detrimental but not immediate, as it is

channeled through changes of environment and socioeconomic changes. One of the most

noticeable changes related to parental migration is economic benefits and subsequent

improvements in living standards, which are usually conducive to children’s emotional health.

However, better economic condition does not necessarily result in improved emotional health. At

the same time, migrant children also face difficulties in adjusting to new environment, and

establishing new interpersonal network. Additionally, migrant parents suffer increased work and

life stress as they cope with new conditions. These parents could easily impose such negative

emotional stress to their children which puts migrant children at higher risks for emotional

problems.

11


Figure 1. The Pathways of Migration Status on Children's Emotional Well-being

What remains unclear is the overall effect of migration; in other words, whether the

upward effect or the downward effect dominates. As discussed in my literature review,

children’s emotional well-being indeed is associated with two critical factors – migration status

and the presence of parents. Previous research has addressed the effect of migration status

without consideration of presence of parents. To further understand which factors play a more

important role, this thesis focuses on four different family types: intact urban family (where

children are registered as urban population and have both parents living with them); single urban

family; intact migrant family (where children migrate from rural to urban region and live with

12
both of parents in the urban region); and single-parent migrant family. In Figure 2, the horizontal

line represents a measure of children’s emotional well-being, ranking low to high from left to

right. Based on previous studies, I propose two hypothesizes in this thesis. The first is that

migration has a negative effect on children’s emotional well-being. The second is that the

presence of parents has a positive effect on children’s emotional well-being. Additionally, this

thesis tests whether the presence of parents or migration plays a more important role in

determining children’s emotional well-being.

Based on my hypotheses, I expect that children from intact urban families to rank highest

with respect to emotional well-being while children from single-parent migrant families rank

lowest. It is still unclear whether children from single-parent urban families or children from

intact migrant families have higher levels of emotional well-being.

Figure 2. Children's Emotional Well-being from Four Family Types

13
4. DATA AND METHODOLOGY

4.1 Data

This study uses data from the 2012 baseline survey of the China Family Panel Studies

(CFPS), a national survey comprising Chinese communities, families, and individuals. The data

provide a wealth of information covering topics such as “economic activities, education

outcomes, family dynamics and relationships, migration, and health.” Covering both children at

urban origins (either in non-migrant families or migrant families), the 2012 CFPS data allow us

to fully capture the effects of migration across a wide range of outcomes associated with

children’s emotional well-being.

The 2012 CFPS baseline survey successfully interviewed 13,315 households from 621

communities, including 35,720 adults and 8,624 children, in 25 designated provinces, for an

approximate response rate of 83%, with the majority of the non-response due to loss of contact.

This thesis only focuses on children who are currently living in the urban region and those age

between 10 and 15 years old because only children in this age period self-report to the emotional

well-being questions. I consolidated these data to create the dataset I used for my analysis. The

resulting data include 645 observations.

Data Combination

This data covers a wide range of categories – communities, household, adults and

children, and need to be combined into one comprehensive dataset. I used 2012 Child dataset as

my basic working dataset. To match parents and their children, I combined the dataset of 2012

Adult dataset and 2012 Child dataset based on individual and household identification number. If

one adult and one child have same identification 026, they are matched together as a family,

where I had a dataset comprising 3,456 children in total. Then, I only keep those children aged

14
from 10 to 15 years old where I had 1,081 children. In addition, I only include children who

current live in urban and I got 856 children in total from migrant and non-migrant family. Then I

dropped missing values from all related variables, and had the number of 645 observations.

4.2 Variables

Dependent Variables

The dependent variables in this thesis measure a comprehensive list of children’s

emotional well, including children’s confidence level, interpersonal relationship, happiness,

depression, and optimism. These variables are constructed from multiple questions listed in the

CFPS survey. The questions are all answered by children themselves, which can accurately

reflect children’s true emotional well-being.

Confidence. This variable is based on the survey question “Are you confident about

your future.” The answer scales from 0 to 10, where 0 means having no confidence at all and 10

means having full confidence. To simply the research, I construct confidence as a dummy

variable, where 0~5 refers to low confidence while 6~10 refers to high confidence.

Interpersonal Relationship. The response categories are scored from 0 to 10 where 0

represents serious relationship (no friends) and 10 represents pretty good relationship. Also, I

define it as a dummy variable, where the score 0~5 means bad relationship and the score 6~10

means good personal relationship.

Happiness. Happiness is often based on the response of the question “are you happy

about your life.” The response ranges from 0 to 10 where I define score 0~5 as unhappy and

score 6~10 as happy about life.

Depression. Respondents are asked how often they felt depression during the past week:

rarely (less than one); sometimes (one to two times per week); often (three to four times per

15
week); most of times (five to seven times per week). I define depression as dummy variable –

less than one time per week represents low depression (=1) while others represent high

depression (=0).

Optimism. The feeling of optimism is reflected by the question “how often did you feel

hopeful for your future in the past week.” Responses are aligned as: rarely (less than one);

sometimes (one to two times per week); often (three to four times per week); most of times (five

to seven times per week). I construct optimism as a dummy variable where I define less than one

time per week as pessimism, and higher than one time per week as optimism.

Key Independent Variables

Migration Status. The key variable of interest of this thesis is migration status. It is

measured by comparing current living type (rural or urban) with household registration place.

Thus, I define rural-to-urban migration as someone who currently lives in an urban community,

but still holds a rural registration record. Accordingly, a non-migrant (urban born) child refers to

one who currently lives in an urban community and maintains an urban registration record. I

construct migration status as an indicator variable that it takes the value of zero for non-migrant

(urban born) children and one for migrant children. Such a setting allows me to examine the

impact of migration on children’s emotional well-being as other factors are held constant.

Intact. Another key interest variable is the presence of parents. I define children living

with both parents as an intact family, while those living with either a mother or father as single-

parent family. This variable takes the value of zero for children living with a single parent and

one for children living with both parents.

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Control Variables

Based on previous literature, I incorporate several critical family socioeconomic status,

individual, and demographic characteristics as control variables. I first control for children’s

demographic characteristics including children’s age, gender, and schooling. Then I control for

family socioeconomic characteristics such as household income, father’s education, and mother’s

education as well as number of siblings.

Age. This study only focused on children aged between 10 and 15 because only this

group of children answer the CFPS survey questions associated with their emotional well-being.

Gender. Children’s gender is an indicator variable where zero presents female and one

presents male.

Household income. The computation of household income in the CFPS survey includes

all income sources, such as wages, allowances and bonus. Incorporating household income in

this thesis helps to control for the income effect of parental migration.

Father’s education (mother’s education). Previous research shows that parents’

education, both father’s education and mother’s education play a role in shaping children’s

emotional well-being. I construct this indicator as a categorical variable. The variable takes the

value of one if a mother’s or father’s education is middle school or lower, and it equals two if

education level is middle school, and three if high school or higher.

Number of siblings. Many studies have found that siblings’ companionship and contact

during childhood has a positive effect on children’s emotional health.

17
4.3 Estimation Strategy

To study the effect of migration, and also see whether migration or presence of parents

plays a more important role, I create an interaction term of migration status and presence of

parents in my model. In order to see the direct impact of migration on children’s emotional well-

being, I first conduct the regression in a reduced form model where migration (migration status)

is the key explanatory variable. The equation is:

Y= α + β1·Migration + β2*hhinc + β3 *Fathedu + β4*Mothedu + β5 * age + β6*gender+

β7*Number of children (1)

To identify the effect of presence of parents on children’s emotional well-being, I also

run the regression in a reduced form where the presence of both parents (intact family) is the key

independent variable. The equation is:

Y= α + β1*intact + β2*hhinc + β3 *Fathedu + β4*Mothedu + β5 * age + β6*gender+

β7*Number of children (2)

To test whether the presence of parents or migration plays a more important role, I first

run regression model (3) and then run the regression model (4). The logistic model can be

computed as:

Y= α + β1·Migration + β2*intact + β3*hhinc + β4*Fathedu + β5*Mothedu + β6 * age +

β7*gender+ β8*Number of children (3)

18
 Y= α + β1·Migration + β2*Intact+ β3*(Intact*Migration) + β4*hhinc + β5 *Fathedu +

β6*Mothedu + β7 * age + β8*gender+ β9*Number of children (4)

Equation (3) and (4) could help to identify whether migration status and presence of

parents play a role in shaping children’s emotional well-being. Only if they both show significant

results can I do equation (4) to test which factor is more important.

19
5. RESULTS

5.1 Descriptive Statistics

Table 1 shows the distribution of 645 children in our sample: 387 children are from

urban-intact family, 88 children are from urban-single-parent families, 134 children are from

migrant-intact families and the other 36 children are from migrant-single-parent families.

Table 1. Distribution of Four Family Types

Family Type Sample Size (N)

Intact Urban Family (Intact =1 & Migrant =0) 387

Single Urban Family (Intact =0 & Migrant =0) 88

Intact Migrant Family (Intact =1 & Migrant =1) 134

Single Migrant Family (Intact =0 & Migrant =1) 36

N=645

Source: China Family Panel Studies (2012), author’s calculation

Table 2 indicates that the age range of children in my sample range from 10 to 15 years,

and the average age is around 13 years. Male children account for 51.88 percent (n=336) of the

sample. Most of the children (48.84 percent) are the only children in their family; 33.18 percent

have one sibling and others have two or more siblings. Average annual household income is

approximately 34,936 RMB, a little bit lower than than national average of 47,593 (World Bank,

2012). In addition, parents’ education tends to be disproportionally lower than middle school and

the father’s education level is overall higher that mother’s. The results of children’s emotional

well-being present a positive picture. Based on the answers of the 645 children in my sample,

85.41 percent feel really confident about their future, 78.70 percent have good interpersonal

20
relations, 84.06 percent feel happy about their current life, 59.09 percent suffer from depression,

and 94.42 percent feel optimistic in their daily lives.

Table 2 also provides information on the emotional well-being of children from four

different family type. It shows that overall, children from intact urban families tend to have

higher level of emotional well-being, but there is no statistically significant difference between

four types of families. For example, in terms of confidence level, 89.05 percent of children from

intact urban family feel confident, ranking the highest among the four family types. Additionally,

nearly 97.67 percent of children from intact urban families are optimistic about their future,

ranking highest.

21
Table 2. Descriptive Statistics for Independent and Dependent Variables
Migrant Family Non Migrant Family

Variables Total Sample Intact Migrant Single Migrant Intact Urban Single Urban

Family Family Family Family

Confidence (%) 85.41 88.23 80.36 89.05 87.10

Interpersonal

Relationship (%) 78.70 80.23 73.62 86.04 79.63

Happiness (%) 84.06 76.47 80.36 90.69 85.06

Depression (%) 59.09 64.70 58.89 47.44 58.14

Optimism (%) 94.73 74.11 71.09 97.67 95.47

Migration (%) 27.06 ---- ---- --- ---

Intact (%) 80.82 ---- ---- --- ---

Household Income

(RMB/year) 34,936 35,882 22,208 53,278 28,376

Age 12.64 13.12 12.64 12.91 11.89

Gender, 1=Male (%) 51.88 52.94 53.98 55.81 44.79

Number of siblings 1.56 1.35 1.90 1.47 1.82

Father’s Education

Lower than middle school 61.35 78.56 79.47 57.27 53.24

Middle school 21.06 11.76 10.69 23.77 21.86

High School and higher 17.59 9.68 9.84 18.96 24.9

Mother’s Education

Lower than middle school 80.90 83.76 84.14 73.74 69.29

Middle school 12.18 10.09 9.63 15.16 20.46

High School and higher 6.92 6.15 6.23 11.10 10.25

N=645

Source: China Family Panel Studies (2012), author’s calculation

22
5.2 Regression Results

Among the four types of families, my analysis identifies two key factors that might affect

children’s emotional well-being – migration and presence of parents. In addition, it tests to see

which factor plays a more important role and my regression results are presented in Table 3.

Effects of Migration

I infer the effect of migration through comparing migrant families with non-migrant

families and applying a logistic model to estimate the effect of migration. I find that migration

has a negative effect on children’s confidence level and interpersonal relationships.

Specifically, in terms of confidence, the variable migration is statistically significant at 10

percent significance level. This can be interpreted as a child from migrant family being 33.3

percent less likely to feel confident about their future than a child from a non-migrant family. In

regard to interpersonal relationship, migration is also statistically significant at the 10 percent

significance level, which presents that a child from a migrant family is 32.7 percent less likely to

establish good interpersonal relationship than child from non-migrant family.

Additionally, the variable age is statistically significant at the 5 percent significance level,

where that for each one-year increase in a child’s age, the child’s confidence level decreases by

13.3 percent. In contrast, age is positively associated with children’s interpersonal relationship

and optimism. A one-year increase in age increases children’s interpersonal relationship by 5.6

percent at the 5 percent significance level and increases children’s optimism by 26.1 percent at

the 10 percent significance level.

Male children are 36.9 percent less likely to feel happy about their lives than female

children and this finding is significant at the 5 percent significance level. At the same time, male

children are 36.6 percent more likely to have depression at the 5 percent significance level.

23
 The number of siblings is statistically significant at the 5 percent confidence level, and

can be interpreted as meaning for each additional increase of siblings, a child is 21 percent less

likely to feel happy. In addition, the number of siblings is also related to children’s happiness. At

the 5 percent significance level, an additional sibling decrease children’s happiness by 21 percent.

24
Table 3. Effect of Migration on Children's Emotional Well-being
Interpersonal
Confidence Happiness Depression Optimism
Relationship
.667* .673* .759 1.062 .576
Migration
(.162) (.1437) (.176) (.192) (.225)

1.008 1.056 1.213 .878 1.083

Household Income(log)
(.182) (.158) (.228) (.135) (.172)

.867** 1.142** 1.034 .961 1.261*

Age
(.063) (.068) (.069) (.045) (.164)
.950 .943 .631** 1.366** .624
Gender, 1=Male
(.212) (.181) (.137) (.216) (.230)
.926 .865 .790** .889 .915
Number of siblings
(.116) (.088) (.085) (.079) (.198)
Father’s Education
.915 .963 1.031 .724 .934
Middle school
(.276) (.250) (.306) (.153) (.442)
.628 1.398 .957 .958 1.052
High School and higher
(.193) (.425) (.301) (.232) (.522)
Mother’s Education
1.089 .744 1.287 1.115 2.152
Middle school
(.412) (.243) (.501) (.303) (1.693)
1.138 .742 .748 .735 1.057
High School and higher
(.509) (.310) (.337) (.258) (.826)
51.988*** 1.011 7.055** 2.576 1.758
Constant
(53.246) (.794) (6.278) (1.665) (2.831)

R-squared .020 .018 .024 .012 .038

N=645
***
p<0.01; **p<0.05; *p<0.1;

Source: China Family Panel Studies (2012), author’s calculation

25
Effects of the Presence of Parents

To see the effect of the presence of parents, I estimate a logistical model to compare

intact families with single-parent families. My finding is that presence of parents is positively

associated with children’s emotional well-being, especially children’s confidence level,

interpersonal relationship and happiness. My regression results indicating the effect of the

presence of parents are listed below in Table 4.

In terms of confidence, the variable intact is statistically significant at the 10 percent

confidence level. This regression result means that a child from an intact family is 17.2 percent

more likely to feel confident about their life than a child from a single family. The variable age is

statistically significant at the 5 percent significance level, and for each one-year increase in age,

a child is 13.7 percent less likely to feel confident. The presence of parents is positively related

to children’s interpersonal relationship, indicating that children from intact family are 2 times as

likely to form interpersonal relationships as children from single-parent family at 10 percent

significance level. Children from intact families are 21.8 percent more likely to feel happy about

their current lives than children from single family at the 10 percent significance level.

The variable age is also associated with children’s confidence and interpersonal

relationship. Specifically, one-unit increase of age decrease children’s confidence level by 13.7

percent and this result is significant at the 5 percent significance level. Each unit increase of age

increase children’s interpersonal relationship by 13.3 percent and this result is significant at the 5

percent level.

In addition to age and the presence of parents, gender also has an effect on children’s

happiness, depression, and optimism level. At the 5 percent significance level, male children are

37.2 percent less likely to feel happy about current lives and 36.6 more likely to feel depression

26
than female children. Additionally, at 10 percent significance level, male children are 87.6 less

likely to feel optimistic than female children.

27
Table 4. Effect of the Presence of Parents on Children's Emotional Well-being

Interpersonal
Confidence Happiness Depression Optimism
Relationship
1.172* 2.027* 1.218* 1.327 1.521
Intact
(.153) (.827) (.498) (.372) (1.163)
1.009 1.058 1.210 .888 1.080
Household Income(log)
(.183) (.161) (.247) (.130) (.166)
.863** 1.133** 1.029 .959 1.248
Age
(.063) (.068) (.070) (.046) (.160)
.940 .936 .628** 1.366** .124*
Gender, 1=Male
(.208) (.180) (.136) (.217) (.160)
.896 .852 .776** .845 .889
Number of siblings
(.110) (.089) (.085) (.080) (.180)
Father’s Education
.907 .953 1.020 .727 .907
Middle school
(.271) (.245) (.301) (.153) (.426)
.635 1.403 .959 .960 1.037
High School and higher
(.195) (.428) (.302) (.231) (.514)
Mother’s Education
1.141 .759 1.328 1.097 2.313
Middle school
(.430) (.248) (.516) (.294) (1.843)
1.196 .774 .785 .723 1.199
High School and higher
(.531) (.325) (.351) (.253) (.927)
50.093*** 1.010 7.023** 2.608 1.698
Constant
(51.812) (.800) (6.264) (1.689) (2.735)
R-squared .020 .018 .024 .012 .038
N=645
***
p<0.01; **p<0.05; *p<0.1;

Source: China Family Panel Studies (2012), author’s calculation

28
Effects of Migration and the Presence of Parents

Based on above two tests, I can see that migration and the presence of parents both affect

children’s emotional well-being. In order to identify which factor plays a more important role. I

first apply a regression including factors of migration and presence of parents, and then apply

another regression including the interaction term of migration and the presence of parents,

migration and presence of parents2. The regression results are presented in Table 5.

The regression results indicate that migration and presence of parents both have a certain

effect on children’s emotional well-being. Specifically, migration is negatively associated with

children’s confidence at the 10 percent significance level, children from migrant family is 33.6

percent less likely to feel confident about the future than those from non-migrant families. At the

10 percent significance level, intact family structure is positively related to children’s

interpersonal relationship and happiness. Children from intact families are 104 percent more

likely to have good interpersonal relationship than children from non-migrant families. Also,

children who live with both parents are 22.8 percent more likely to feel happy than those who

live with only one of their parents.

Children’s age shows a mixed effect on their emotional well-being. It is positively related

to children’s optimism and good interpersonal relationship, and negatively associated with

children’s confidence. A one-year increase in age increases children’s optimism by 25.6 percent

at the 10 percent significance level and increases their possibility of establishing good

interpersonal relationship by 13.5 percent at the 5 percent level. A one-year increase in children’s

age decrease their confidence by 13.6 percent at the 5 percent significance level.

2
This thesis also tested for interaction between intact and migrant and that it was not statistically
significant.

29
 In terms of gender, the regression results show that, at the 5 percent significance level,

male children are 37 percent less likely to feel happy than female children. Also, male children

are 36.4 percent more likely to feel depression than female children. In addition, the number of

sibling has a negative effect on children’s happiness., indicating that at the 5 percent significance

level, each additional sibling decreases children’s happiness by 21.9 percent.

30
Table 5. Effect of the Presence of Parents and Migration on Emotional Well-being

Interpersonal
Confidence Happiness Depression Optimism
Relationship
.664* .758 .757 1.056 .574
Migration
(.162) (.161) (.175) (.192) (.226)

1.197 2.044* 1.228* 1.325 1.537

Intact
(.499) (.835) (.498) (.372) (1.180)

1.007 1.054 1.221 .889 1.079

Household Income
(.180) (.153) (.233) (.137) (.169)

.864** 1.135** 1.032 .958 1.256*

Age
(.063) (.068) (.070) (.045) (.165)

.948 .943 .630** 1.364** .624

Gender, 1=Male
(.221) (.181) (.136) (.216) (.231)

.928 .869 .791** .891 .919

Number of siblings
(.116) (.089) (.085) (.080) (.202)
Father’s Education
.918 .965 1.033 .725 .940
Middle school
(.277) (.250) (.307) (.153) (.446)
.629 1.407 .957 .960 1.051
High School and higher
(.193) (.428) (.301) (.232) (.523)
Mother’s Education

1.082 .735 1.284 1.105 2.163

Middle school
(.409) (.242) (.500) (.297) (1.721)

1.127 .737 .747 .723 1.064

High School and higher
(.504) (.309) (.335) (.257) (.835)
52.558*** 1.026 7.111** 2.600 1.759
Constant
(54.098) (.812) (6.360) (1.685) (2.852)
R-squared .020 .025 .024 .014 .042
N=645
***
p<0.01; **p<0.05; *p<0.1;

Source: China Family Panel Studies (2012), author’s calculation

31
6. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

6.1 Discussion of Results

Driven by economic growth and urbanization, rural-to-urban migration has become an

irreversible force and an integral part of family life in most parts of China. Following this trend,

migrant children now constitute an important and growing population in society. This thesis

finds that migration does have a negative impact on children’s emotional well-being compared to

their non-migrant peers. This finding is consistent with previous studies. Explanations can be

generalized that migration imposes intense physical stress on children, as they often feel difficult

to adjust to new environment, and establish new interpersonal network. These stresses are likely

to cause psychological symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and disorder.

Another finding is that presence of parents has a positive effect on children’s emotional

well-being, which is consistent with previous research and attachment theory. Most research

evaluating the effect of family structure on children’s health demonstrates that children tend to

have better emotional well-being if they live with both their married, biological parents.

McLanahan and Sandefur (1994) find that children who do not live with both parents are nearly

twice as likely to be poor, to have behavioral and psychological problems and low educational

performance. Mackay (2005) also finds that parental separation is associated with various

adverse effects on children’s emotional well-being, and that children from single-parent families

are more likely to have emotional problems such as depression and anxiety, which can endure

into their adulthood.

Regrettably, due to the limitations which I will mention in the next sector, I do not find

the evidence of whether the migration or the presence of parents play a more important role.

32
6.2 Limitations

The analysis is limited in several ways. First, my sample size is relatively small, which

limits my ability to further differentiate the analysis by dividing four family groups. After

investigation of this national survey, I find that the largest and most responsive provinces in the

CFPS survey are those in less-developed provinces including Shanxi, Yunnan and Gansu

provinces where majority of people still live in rural and do not migrate to urban. Thus, majority

of my sample are children from urban areas, which limits the magnitude of my statistical analysis.

Second, my data is cross-sectional instead of longitudinal. This prevents me to from

establishing the causation. I cannot study the children before and after migration and can only

evaluate statistical associations. However, current data still provide us sufficient information to

conduct statistical analysis and draw conclusions.

Third, my analysis fails to control for the length of stay in cities for migrant children. In

fact, the length of children’s stay in the city is a key factor in shaping their emotional well-being.

Based on assimilation theory, though migrant children may have difficulty in adjusting to new

urban environment, they can still resort to unique resources to gradually adapt, overcome these

disadvantages and then achieve upward mobility (Greenman and Xie, 2008). This theory

indicates that the longer migrant children stay in cities, the greater the chances that they could

overcome challenges and have higher levels of emotional well-being. However, though the

dataset has information about migration, it does not include any details about the duration of

migration.

Finally, most measures of the dependent variables and independent variables are based on

children’s and adults’ self-reports, which could possibly include reporting errors. The

documentation shows that CFPS data are of high quality in terms of demographic and

33
socioeconomic factors, while other measures, especially those involving sensitivity and privacy,

such as household income, ad self-reported emotional health are often subjective and may not

fully reflect true conditions. This inevitably limits my capacity to fully address the measurement

errors.

6.3 Policy Implications

Previous literature and studies generally attribute the negative impact of migration on

children’s emotional well-being by China’s Hukou System. Under the Hukou system, migrant

parents as well as their children are always disadvantaged groups. Migrant children are not

entitled to most resources and public services such as access to public education and health care.

Additionally, due to the tedious procedures, it is extremely difficult for migrant population to

change their registration place from rural to urban, which constrains children’s welfare in the

long term (Shannon, 2016). As a result, from the perspective of child development, it is

necessary for the Chinese government to reform the current hukou system and take actions to

improve migrant children’s emotional well-being.

To improve children’s emotional well-being, the government should first promote access

to social services especially to public education and health care. The government needs to

abolish restrictions on enrollment and provide equal access to urban and migrant children. Also,

the government should improve the quality of private schools which mainly enroll migrant

children, especially the teachers’ quality and teaching materials. Additionally, government

should improve access to health care through providing health insurance to migrant children.

Apart from increasing access to social services, the government should also take action to

help children adjust to new environments. In this case, the government could cooperate with

local communities or local organizations to help migrant children recover from the destruction of

34
old network and establishing new networks. The government could also provide psychological

assistance to migrant children via establishing hot line services or on online free consultation

program.

The limitations I mentioned above do not necessarily undermine the strengths of my

study. This study is among the first to study the effect of migration on children’s emotional well-

being in the urban areas of China and draw attention to migrant children in cities instead of left

behind children. In addition, by capturing children living in different family types, I make

comparisons across four distinct groups to see the actual effect of migration and identify whether

it is the dominate factor in shaping children’s emotional well-being. In consideration of the long

term socioeconomic development, further studies need to pay attention to this disadvantaged

group and put forward helpful suggestions to improve migrant children’s emotional well-being.

35
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