The impact of parental migration on children’s school performance in rural China

摘要: A substantial amount of China’s rapid economic growth in has been attributed to its large proportion rural-urban migrants, but more than 80% these migrants’ children are still left rural areas mainly due household registration system. Identification the impact parental migration on children’s school performance may encounter problem endogeneity. Using unique survey data collected from Qinghai Province and Ningxia Autonomous Region Northwestern China where 7,100 Grade 4 & 5 students 74 elementary schools participated by instrumental-variable estimation, our results indicate that parents’ decisions migrate exogenous their schooling performance, one migratory parent can marginally reduce child’s math score 1.73 percent percentile rank, which implies current partially jeopardizes future next generation. In addition, we find a causal relationship between poor ethnic minorities both geographical social disadvantages.