The Impact of Childhood Left-Behind Experience on the Mental Health of Late Adolescents

Evidence from Chinese College Freshmen

Bibliographic Data

ID15465359
AuthorsHuajun Wu (0000-0001-6268-0492, Nanjing Audit University), Zhiyong Cai (0000-0002-7599-8245, Nanjing Normal University), Qing Yan (0000-0001-6809-8313, Wuxi Development and Reform Research Center, Wuxi 214000, China), Yi Yu (0000-0003-4670-3927, Nanjing Audit University), Ning Neil Yu (0000-0002-0044-028X, Nanjing Audit University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume18
Issue5
Pages2778-2778
Publication date2021-03-09
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1661-7827 • E-ISSN: 1660-4601
PublisherMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (PUBLISHER • CH)
DOI10.3390/ijerph18052778
PMID33803365
OpenAlexW3135027337
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited46

A paucity of public service afforded to migrant workers often begets a wide range of social problems. In China, hundreds of millions of migrant worker parents have to leave children behind in their hometowns. This paper investigated the long-term effects of the childhood experience of being left behind on the mental well-being of late adolescents. Mandatory university personality inventory (UPI) surveys (involving psychosomatic problems such as anxiety, depression, and stress) were conducted at a university in Jiangsu, China, during 2014-2017. The study sample consisted of 15,804 first-year college students aged between 15 and 28 years. The PSM method and the OLS regression model were employed. Controlling for the confounding factors (gender, age, single-child status, hometown location, ethnicity, and economic status), our empirical investigation demonstrated that childhood left-behind experience significantly worsened the mental health of the study sample, increasing the measure of mental ill-being by 0.661 standard deviations ( p < 0.01). Moreover, the effects were consistently significant in subsamples divided by gender, single-child status, and hometown location; and the effects were greater for females, single-child students, and urban residents

Anxiety · China · Confounding · Depression (economics · Ethnic group · Geography · Mental health · Personality · Psychiatry · Clinical Psychology · Demography · Employment and Welfare Studies · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

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