The Impact Of Parents Returning Home From Work On The Academic Performance Of Left-behind Children

As China's urbanization process continues to accelerate,labour mobility between urban and rural areas is more frequent,and a considerable number of left-behind children are born.Changes in the lives of children left behind by parents and the learning environment may affect the accumulation of human capital,which in turn affects the performance of the future labour market,and thus changes the stable development of China's economy.Many scholars focus on the impact of parents going out to work on the academic performance of left-behind children,but the results of empirical research have not reached an agreement.Parents go out to work to influence the academic performance of left-behind children from the two mechanisms of“income effect" and "care effect".The "income effect" refers to the increase in income brought by parents when they go out to work,which will increase the family's nutrition and education for children.Investment,which positively affects academic performance;"care effect" means that left-behind children lack parental care and thus have to give up studying time to undertake housework,and lack parental counselling and supervision of learning,thus negatively affecting academic performance.Migrant workers are the current mainstream concern but affected by the household registration system and the economic environment and related policies,the number of migrant workers has gradually grown.The existing researches have little research on the academic performance and physical and mental health of parents returning home and left-behind children.Most scholars pay attention to the factors that influence the returnees to make decisions about returning home and the agricultural or entrepreneurial planning after returning home.This study is based on the 2013-2014 panel data of more than 12,000 students in 130 rural primary schools in rural,poverty-stricken areas in northwest China,using the Differences-in-Differences(DD)and Propensity Score Matching(PSM).Study the impact of parents returning to work on the academic performance of left-behind children.At the same time,referring to the analysis framework of parents going out to work and left-behind children,this paper attempts to explain the mechanism of the return of parents'work to the left-behind children's academic performance from the income effect and the care effect.The results show that the return of parents to work has no significant effect on the academic performance of left-behind children which maybe because the "income effect"that gradually disappears after parents return home and the increasing"care effect" offset each other.The regression coefficients of the six types of parents returning home are not significant.Among them,the coefficient of "only mothers returning home" is positive.The coefficient of returning home by any parent,father returning home,an only father returning home,mother returning home,and both parents returning home is negative.This paper interprets regression results by heterogeneity analysis combined with"income effect" and "care effect".According to the sample,the household assets are classified into high,middle and low categories.It can be seen that the return of parents to work has a significant negative impact on the academic performance of left-behind children with low family assets,and has no significant impact on the academic performance of the other two types of left-behind children.That is to say,in this study,the negative effect of the "income effect" due to gradual disappearance has a greater impact on left-behind children whose family economic status is relatively poor.The possible reason is that relatively low-income families need income from parents' migrant workers.Indirectly,from the "income effect",the reason for the negative difference between the five parental return variables in the double difference method and the matching result is explained."Mother returning home" and "both parents returning home" have a significant positive impact on the academic performance of older left-behind children.The possible reason is that after the parents return home,they will relieve the older left-behind children to do housework,take care of their families,etc.Stress,so that more time and energy are devoted to learning.This result also indirectly confirms the care effect brought by the parents after returning home.Parents returning home have increased their academic performance from left-behind children of the Turkish community.The analysis shows that the education level of the mothers of the left-behind children of the Tus is significantly higher than that of the other non-Han left-behind children.This is consistent with the "care effect" hypothesis of this paper.When the mothers of left-behind children have the ability to provide more effective learning guidance for their children,the care effect The weight plays a greater role in the mechanism of returning to the homeland;the left-behind children of the Salars have a significantly lower academic performance than the Han students when they return to their hometown only,or the mother returns home.The possible reason is the family assets of the left-behind children of the Cellars.Significantly lower than left-behind children from other ethnic groups,this is consistent with the "income effect" hypothesis of this paper:for left-behind children whose families are relatively poor,parents returning home will cause the family to lose the original "income effect",thus reducing the family to the children.The investment in life and education harms academic performance.Based on the above research results,this paper proposes the following policy recommendations:First,the government should promote the reform of the household registration system,increase the total amount of educational resources in various channels,and improve the equal access of migrant children to their parents' workplaces.Secondly,to continue to maintain the advantage of the "income effect" brought about by family members going out to work,the government should introduce policies and measures to support the entrepreneurship of migrant workers returning to their hometowns,and provide policy support for migrant workers to return to their hometowns.