The mental health of children of migrant workers in Beijing: The protective role of public school attendance |
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| Authors: | Qin Gao Hong Li Hong Zou Wendi Cross Ran Bian Yan Liu |
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| Affiliation: | 1. School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China;2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;3. Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester Medical Centre, Rochester, NY, USA;4. Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China |
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| Abstract: | The present study aims to understand the mental health status of an understudied group of migrant children – children of migrant workers in China. A total of 1,466 children from Beijing participated in the study that compared migrant children (n = 1,019) to their local peers (n = 447) in public and private school settings. Results showed that overall, migrant children reported more internalizing and externalizing mental health problems and lower life satisfaction than local peers. However, public school attendance served as a protective factor for migrant children's mental health. The mental health status of migrant children attending public schools, including externalizing problems as well as friend and school satisfaction, was not different from local children. In addition, our data indicates that the protective effect of public school attendance for migrant children may be even more salient among girls than boys, and for younger children than older children. |
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| Keywords: | Children of migrant workers in China externalizing problems internalizing problems life satisfaction school settings |
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