HOW INCOME SHAPES PRESCHOOL CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

Abstract

This study examines how family income affects three- to six-year-olds’ cognitive development and behavior in China, where the hukou system, the regional disparity, and the large-scale internal migration have significantly shaped children’s development. The analysis used a national sample from the Urbanization and Labor Migration Survey in China. I find that family income contributes to children’s cognitive skills through the provision of a stimulating environment and affects their behavior problems mainly through its impact on the primary caregiver’s depression and punitive parenting. Moreover, low income had a larger impact on rural children’s external behavior problems than on their urban peers. Likewise, family investment in educational resources and warm parenting benefited rural and western children’s cognitive abilities more than to their urban and eastern counterparts’. The primary caregiver’s depression and punitive parenting were more detrimental to rural local and left-behind children’s external behavior problems than to urban local and migrant children.