Effect Pathways of Informal Family Separation on Children’s Outcomes: Paternal Labor Migration and Long-term Educational Attainment of Left-Behind Children in Rural China

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dc.contributor.authorShen, Wensong
dc.contributor.authorHu, Li-Chung
dc.date2023-05-18T00:33:45.000
dc.date.accessioned2023-05-22T18:58:02Z
dc.date.available2023-05-22T18:58:02Z
dc.date.issued2021-02-01
dc.date.submitted2021-04-19T07:54:47-07:00
dc.description.abstractInformal family separation due to parental labor migration is an increasingly common experience in the lives of children in many countries. This paper proposes a framework and method for analyzing “effect pathways” by which parental labor migration might affect children’s outcomes. The framework incorporates home-environment and child-development mechanisms and is adapted from migration, sociology of education and child development literatures. We test these pathways using data on father absence and long-term educational outcomes for girls and boys in China. We apply structural equation models with inverse probability of treatment weighting to data from a 15-year longitudinal survey of 2,000 children. Significantly, fathers’ migration has distinct implications for different effect pathways. It is associated most significantly with reduced human capital at home, which has the largest detrimental effect on children’s educational attainment, among those studied. At the same time, father absence is associated with better family economic capital, which partially buffers the negative implications of father absence. Overall, father absence corresponds to a reduction of 0.342 years on average in children’s educational attainment, but the reduction is larger for boys than for girls. For boys and girls, the reduced availability of literate adults in the household linked to father absence is an important effect pathway. For girls, this detrimental effect is partially offset by a positive income effect, but for boys, the offset effect is trivial.
dc.description.commentsThis working paper was published in a journal: Shen, Wensong, Li-Chung Hu, and Emily Hannum. 2021. "Effect Pathways of Informal Family Separation on Children's Outcomes: Paternal Labor Migration and Long-Term Educational Attainment of Left-Behind Children in Rural China." Social Science Research 97:102576. PMCID: PMC8442607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2021.102576.
dc.identifier.urihttps://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/32989
dc.legacy.articleid1007
dc.legacy.fulltexturlhttps://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=education_inequality_workshop&unstamped=1
dc.legacy.nativeurlhttps://repository.upenn.edu/context/education_inequality_workshop/article/1007/type/native/viewcontent
dc.source.issue8
dc.source.journalPenn Education and Inequality Working Papers
dc.source.statuspublished
dc.subject.otherfamily separation
dc.subject.othereducational attainment
dc.subject.otherChina
dc.subject.otherleft-behind children
dc.subject.otherpaternal labor migration
dc.subject.otherfather absence
dc.subject.otherAsian Studies
dc.subject.otherEducation
dc.subject.otherFamily, Life Course, and Society
dc.subject.otherInequality and Stratification
dc.subject.otherInternational and Comparative Education
dc.titleEffect Pathways of Informal Family Separation on Children’s Outcomes: Paternal Labor Migration and Long-term Educational Attainment of Left-Behind Children in Rural China
dc.typeWorking Paper
digcom.identifiereducation_inequality_workshop/8
digcom.identifier.contextkey22553193
digcom.identifier.submissionpatheducation_inequality_workshop/8
digcom.typeworkingpaper
dspace.entity.typePublication
person.identifier.orcid0000-0003-2011-9984
person.identifier.orcid0000-0003-2011-9984
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relation.isAuthorOfPublication3906225c-2f64-4ee2-969d-0ab253dd06cb
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upenn.schoolDepartmentCenterPenn Education and Inequality Working Papers
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