Education, Health, and Development of Migrant Children in Beijing: An Empirical Study of Social Integration

Background: The migration of millions of Chinese workers from rural to urban areas has been one key to China’s economic success. Along with the migration, it is estimated that about 36 million children of rural migrant workers currently live with their parents in cities. Migrant children often have limited access to social and educational services due to China’s household-registration system. Compared to their counterparts in cities, migrant children face greater challenges to achieve success in all aspects of individual development. Using migrant children in Beijing as an example, this study describes development status of migrant children from a perspective of social integration (i.e. Do public institutes provide sufficient support and opportunities for migrant children?)

Methods: With a mixed-method design, the study collected survey information from 491 migrant families and 290 local families with children age 7-16 in 2014. Sample families were selected from three neighborhoods with a high proportion of migrant families in districts of Haidian and Chaoyang, Beijing. Children were selected to make sure that the age distribution in the sample is similar to that of all children in Beijing. One unique contribution of the study is that the survey included a series of standardized measures on child development, including education, health, mental health, and social-emotional development (e.g., resilience scale, general health questionnaire, self-esteem scale and general self-efficacy scale). After survey, we further conducted semi-structural qualitative interviews on ten sample families. This abstract reports the first-stage analysis of the survey data, comparing these standardized measures between children of migrant children and those of local families.

Results: About 52% of sample children were male, and the median education of these children is about the third grade. Compared to their local counterparts, migrant children were 13 percentage points and 18 percentage points less likely to achieve “excellence” in math and English, respectively (p<.05).  They were also less likely to be covered by health insurance (35.3% vs. 86.9%, p<.05), get regular physical checkup (55.3% vs. 92.6%, p<.05), and have sufficient nutrition intake indicated by consumption of milk and egg. In addition, migrant children had statistically lower scores than local children on all psychological scales, including resilience, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and general health. The development of migrant children is related to a variety of family, social, and policy characteristics. Migrant families had lower income and spent less in educational investment (e.g., economic resources and time efforts). Migrant families cannot access to local social services such as anti-poverty programs, and only half of migrant children attended public schools.

Implications: Consistent with previous research, findings suggest that overall migrant children in Beijing had worse performance on many aspects of individual development than children of local families. Due to the barrier caused by the household-registration system, there is a lack of opportunities for migrant families and their children on social integration and social inclusion.  To reduce the development disparity between two groups, a universal infrastructure to provide service to all children is recommended.