Department of Maternal and Child Health, Peking University School of Public Health, 38 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100191, China.
Section of Health, Nutrition, and Water, Environment and Sanitation, UNICEF China, Beijing, China.
Int J Public Health. 2020 Dec;65(9):1711-1721. doi: 10.1007/s00038-020-01509-w. Epub 2020 Oct 15.
This study assessed the early social-emotional development of left-behind children (LBC) in rural China and determined the mediating factors linking parental migration to LBC's developmental outcome.
We used cross-sectional data of 845 LBC under 3 years old from five counties in rural China in 2018. Social-emotional problems were assessed by the ages and stages questionnaires: social-emotional. Family structure, function, and child nurturing care practices were measured to explore their roles in potential pathways of parental migration affecting early social-emotional development.
36.4% of LBC were identified with social-emotional problems; the rate was higher among LBC with migrant parents than those with migrant fathers (39.9% vs. 30.5%, adjusted OR: 1.40 [95% CI 1.01, 1.93]). Results of structural equation modeling reveal that caregivers' low education and depressive symptoms, poor migrant-caregiver communication, family poverty, and no assistant caregiving weakened home parenting environment, and then contributed to LBC's social-emotional problems.
LBC in early childhood may be at a high risk of social-emotional problems, which are primarily caused by the transition of family structure and function and consequently weakened home environment.
本研究评估了中国农村留守儿童的早期社会情感发展，并确定了将父母迁移与留守儿童发展结果联系起来的中介因素。
我们使用了 2018 年来自中国农村五个县的 845 名 3 岁以下留守儿童的横断面数据。通过年龄和阶段问卷评估社会情感问题：社会情感。家庭结构、功能和儿童养育照护实践被用来探索它们在父母迁移影响早期社会情感发展的潜在途径中的作用。
36.4%的留守儿童存在社会情感问题；有移民父母的留守儿童的比例高于有移民父亲的留守儿童（39.9%比 30.5%，调整后的 OR：1.40 [95% CI 1.01，1.93]）。结构方程模型的结果表明，照顾者的受教育程度低和抑郁症状、移民照顾者之间沟通不良、家庭贫困以及没有辅助照顾削弱了家庭养育环境，进而导致留守儿童的社会情感问题。
幼儿期的留守儿童可能面临较高的社会情感问题风险，这些问题主要是由家庭结构和功能的转变以及随之而来的家庭环境恶化引起的。
