Family migration and educational outcomes of migrant children in China: the roles of family investments and school quality

Abstract

This study examines the effects of family migration on migrant children’s educational outcomes. We especially focus on the relative importance of family investment and school quality to children’s achievements. A unique and nationally representative sample from the National Children’s Study of China (NCSC) (2004 migrant children and 3923 rural children) is used. Estimates from the propensity score matching method suggest that conditional on basic personal and family characteristics, children’s academic performances are significantly improved by family migration. Further examination using the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition approach reveals that over 40% of the differences in the children’s scores in Chinese and about 40% of those in mathematics can be explained by family investments (about 18.67–21.75% in different cases) and school quality (about 18–34.67% in different cases), including parental expectations, family material support, school expenditure, teacher quality, and student–teacher ratio. However, our results also reveal the potential for migrant children to be exposed to social exclusions in urban public schools.