Abstract
It is commonly believed that there are gender differences in the mental health of children left behind in rural China. However, few studies have attempted to explain the gender differences in left-behind rural adolescents from the perspective of their social relationships. This paper analysed the relationship between parental migration arrangements and the gender difference in left-behind adolescents’ mental health and examined how such associations vary according to social relationship. To do this, we used a two-level mixed-effects linear regression model and the propensity score matching method based on data from the 2014–2015 China Education Panel Survey. The results showed that first, the migration of both parents had a greater negative impact on the mental health of adolescent left-behind girls than that of boys. Second, the quality of the parent–child relationship played mediating roles in the association between both-parent migration and the gender differences of left-behind adolescents’ mental health. Third, positive peer–peer, teacher–student, and grandparent–grandchild relationships had mitigating effects similar to those of parent–child relationships. However, when these three forms of social relationships were considered, we found that girls still relied more than boys on emotional support from good parent–child relationships. Thus, girls’ mental health continues to be more negatively affected by both-parent migration than boys. Finally, to enhance the mental health of adolescent left-behind girls, interventions are recommended that pay special attention to improving their parent–child, peer–peer, teacher–student, and grandparent–grandchild relationships.
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Data Availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from Dongyang Zhou upon request.
Notes
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Including those with brothers only and those with both brothers and sisters.
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Sobel test show that this change size was meaningful (Z = 3.180, SE = 0.215, p < 0.01).
References
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by “the Humanities and Social Sciences project of the Ministry of Education” (Grant Number: 21YJA880074), “the Social Science Foundation Project in Jiangsu Province” (Grant Number: 20JYB010), “the Major Project of Philosophy and Social Science Research in Colleges and University in Jiangsu Province” (Grant Number: 2022SJZD078), and High-Quality Development Evaluation Research Institute of Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Results of the PSM Balance Test
The results for the three PSM methods are listed in Appendix Table 4. After matching, the balance test of the two sample groups (both-parent migration and neither-parent migration) showed that the characteristics of the two groups were very close, and the samples were well balanced.
Appendix 2: Post-PSM Model Results
The multi-level mixed-effects linear regression model was used to investigate the impact of parental migration on the mental health of rural left-behind adolescents. The model estimation results are shown in Appendix Tables 5, 6, and 7. No matter which PSM the results were based on, when the other variables were controlled, the average mental health scores of left-behind adolescents in situations of both-parent migration were significantly lower than those in situations of neither-parent migration (p < 0.01). The girls’ score was significantly lower than that of the boys (p < 0.05).
When parental migration types and gender were added as interaction terms, the negative impact of parental migration on girls was still visibly greater than that on boys (the regression coefficients of the interaction terms were all negative, p < 0.05). When the parent–child relationship variable was added, the significance level of the regression coefficients of the interaction terms decreased (p > 0.1). When the variables of peer–peer, teacher–student, and grandparent–grandchild relationships were added, the model results were basically the same as those in Table 2. These results indicate that the findings were robust to the consideration of sample selection bias.
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Li, X., Zhou, D., Duan, T. et al. Parental Migration, Social Relationships, and Left-Behind Adolescents’ Mental Health in Rural China: Examining Gender Differences. Applied Research Quality Life 18, 2795–2828 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-023-10208-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-023-10208-6