Effect of Migration on Children's Self-esteem in Rural China

China's rapid economic growth has been facilitated by its large volume of rural to urban migration. China's projected future development, especially increasing urbanization, implies that such migration will further intensify. However, migration does not come without cost. There are concerns about the potential negative impacts of migration on children's care, education, and, in particular, the self-esteem of children left behind in villages where one or both parents have out-migrated to cities. In this paper, we employ unique survey data collected from Shaanxi Province, where more than 4700 ninth grade students from 36 rural junior high schools in five counties were surveyed in late 2011. The results show that having both parents migrate into cities significantly reduced children's self-esteem. The effects are also gender sensitive. Girls that had a father or both parents who had out-migrated were inclined to have lower self-esteem than boys. Moreover, our study findings indicate that parental migration decreased children's self-esteem more for individuals with initial low self-esteem.