Research Proposal: Impact of Parental Absence or Presence on Left-behind Children in Rural China
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This research proposal aims to study the impact of parental absence or presence on the health and well-being of left-behind children in rural China. The study will survey at least 10,000 rural children ages 6-17 and their parents to collect data on various health and well-being indicators. The independent variable is parental absence/presence, and the dependent variables are the children's health and well-being outcomes. Statistical analysis will examine relationships between these variables and test hypotheses about the impact of parental gender and single parenthood. Strict protocols will ensure ethical and confidential data collection and analysis.
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Research Proposal: Impact of Parental Absence or Presence on Left-behind Children in Rural China
- 1. Impact of Parental Absence or Presence on Left-behind Children in Rural China 2013 Research Proposal By Shea Zhao
- 2. Introduction • Unprecedented development achievements & tremendous transition – Poverty reduction in China accounts for 75% of the world’s total poverty reduction since 1978. – Life expectancy went from 35 to 75 + (almost medieval) • At the same time, especially since 1979, growing rural-urban disparity – Lack of economic opportunity = mass migration – Grey documents: ~ 300 million internal migrant workers • However, relocation often leads to more $ but harder life – Hukou system – Restricted from basic social services – school, healthcare, etc. – Stigma & discrimination = “dual society”
- 3. What the literature says • Many parents choose to leave children behind – 23 mil (gov. estimate) to 60 mil LBC • Studies indicate various negative outcomes or risks – Emotional problems & negative feelings (stress, indifference, inferiority, dissatisfaction, unhappiness) – Engaging in adverse or risky behaviors (smoking, drinking, suicide ideation) – Growth & weight issues (growth retardation, under/over weight) – Behavioral issues (antisocial, poor coping skills, learning disabilities)
- 4. The purpose of this research • Understand the impact of parental absence or presence on rural children in China, taking into consideration: – Gender of parent – Impact of single parenthood – Looking at LBC on a national perspective • Target Audience – policy makers, local and central Chinese Government officials, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and the families and communities of rural children
- 5. Hypotheses The goal of the survey is to accurately collect basic indicators of health and well-being in rural children for analysis. Such data will allow researchers to determine if there are associations between variables of health and well-being, and the mother and/or father’s presence or absence in the home. 1. Parental absence or presence has an impact on health and well-being of rural children in China (verified by previous research on smaller scale, but not at national level). 2. Health & well-being indicators of rural children vary by the gender of the parent present or absent. 3. Single parenthood has some impact on health & well-being indicators of rural children.
- 6. The Sample • Left-behind children (LBC) are defined as children with 1+ parent that is a rural-to-urban migrant • Child is defined as those under the age of 18 years old at the time of the survey. This study will collect and analyze self-reported indicators of basic health & well-being taken from children ages 6 to 17.99 via an administered survey. • Parent is defined as biological or adopted parent. • Primary caregiver is defined as the adult (18+) who provides the most care for the child on a day-to-day basis. • Health and well-being indicators for both LBC and non-LBC in rural China will be collected for comparison. • One parent or primary caregiver will also complete an administered survey of the basic health & well-being indicators of the child. • Sample size: The goal is to collect data on at least 10K rural children in order to achieve a 1% sampling error at a confidence interval of 95%.
- 7. Methods • Research Design – Collect data on at least 10K rural children in 31 provinces – Data collected from LBC & non-LBC children and their parents/primary caretaker – All data collected via cross-sectional survey with closed-ended questions – Surveys will be administered by a trained interviewer • Sampling – Multistage, random cluster by household using census enumeration units (children will be selected from those households classified as rural or agricultural households) • 31 provinces (excluding autonomous regions), 350 prefectures, 3,000 county level units, ~ 30,000 township level units, ~ 401, 517, 330 “family “ households in 2010 • enumeration error of 0.12% ~ 164, 464, 425 (mainland population = 1,370,536,875 individuals) • No. of persons in the household: the total number of persons reported by the household in the population census form, excluding those in the HH who have been away from this county or city for more than one year. • Potential issues? Census takes only legal units into account & is perhaps missing migrants that have been away for 1+ years. – Survey administrators will be mostly graduate and post-graduate students and professionals. All survey administrators must be fluent in the local language/dialect in the town/village they are working in and must complete a three-day intensive training course. • Pilot survey first
- 8. Data Analysis • Units of Analysis: Respondents will be individuals; children in rural China & their parents/primary care takers. • Quantitative analysis of indicators of health & well- being using statistical software: SPSS, STATA, or SASS. • Most indicators will be nominal or ordinal, so univariate & bivariate analysis using Lambda & Gamma measures of association will be used. • Mother/father absence/presence will be the independent variable & health & well-being outcomes will be the dependent. • Chi-squared analysis of indicators to assess significance of relationship between independent & dependent variables.
- 9. Ethics • Surveys developed based on expert advise, pilot survey, & government regulations • Obtaining consent – Appropriate wording for child & parent/caregiver – Consent forms completed by child & parent/caregiver – Emphasis on voluntary nature of survey & right to refuse or stop at any time. • Protecting participants & ensuring confidentiality – Potential participants for the study will be selected randomly. – ID case numbers will be used for individuals to ensure anonymity. – Survey administrators will undergo 3 days of training (no foreigners) & be coached to protect child’s best interest. Interviewers & other staff will be trained to protect the confidentiality of participants & must formally agree to do so before hand. – In an effort to mitigate emotional distress, the survey will be administered in the child’s home, in privacy and out of earshot of everyone else except for the interviewers or survey administrators. The child’s needs, age, gender, language, and ethnicity will all be taken into consideration. – This survey will be anonymous and the confidentiality of participants will be maintained. Survey results will be reported only in an aggregated format. – Confidentiality will be breached to provide immediate protection to the child if it is revealed that he/she is being abused or otherwise harmed. A plan of action to handle such situations will be formed to handle such situations through the appropriate local authorities.
- 10. Limitations & Potential Error • Survey Research – High standards to be complied with, which strains resources – No follow-ups = little room for error – Cross-sectional survey = cause(s) can’t be inferred – In-depth questioning not possible: closed-ended questions • Sample – LBC classification status based on current situation, not past experience • Resource limitations – Financial costs, time costs, & human capital requirements are high • Generalizability – Potential for sampling error • Other potential errors – Participant bias, Interviewer bias, Human error.
Editor's Notes
- China has achieved undeniable development achievements in economic growth and poverty reduction over the past few decades. In fact, poverty reduction in China accounts for 75% of the world’s total poverty reduction since 1978. (Liu & Griffiths, 2011) At the same time, rural-urban disparities have increased as most of China’s development has been focused on urban areas. (Ting & Yi pg. 1, 2012) (Shao & Edwards, 2012) Growing disparity and lack of economic opportunity has created a phenomena of mass migration in China, with official Government estimates stating that there are over 150 million internal migrant, but more accurate independent estimates believe that the of Chinese internal migrants is closer to 300 million. (Lee & Park, 2010) (Gong et al., 2012) Unfortunately relocation from rural to urban areas does not allow migrants to benefit from the superior institutions and social services available to urban residents. China’s household registration system, known as the Hukou system, excludes migrants from many of the amenities that urban life has to offer. Introduced in the 1950s as an entitlement program for citizens to receive rations and social entitlements under the China’s communist government, the Hukou system binds individuals to the city or village of their birth and assigns them either agricultural or non-agricultural worker status. (Cheng & Selden pg. 644-645, 1994) (Bao et al., pg. 564 2011) (Zhang & Treiman pg 71-72, 2013) (Bosker, M. et al. pg 253, 2012) (Bao et al., pg. 564 2011) (Gong et al., 2012) (Chen, 2011) Access to public education, low-cost housing, healthcare, and many other social benefits and institutions are only available in one’s place of Hukou residence. Rural-to-urban migrants face social stigma in addition to the institutionized discrimination of the Hukou system. (Chen, X. et al. pg. 22-26, 2011) (Kuang & Liu, 2012) Jiang and others describe this phenomenon as “dual society” in Chinese cities in which migrants and their families are treated as second-class citizens. (Jiang et al. 2012)
- As a result of the hardship that is associated with migration, the Chinese Government estimates that 23 million children under the age of 14 have been left-behind in rural areas, but other organizations, like the All-China Women’s Federation estimate that the number of LBC is closer to 60 million. (Canadian Medical Association, 2010) The literature on left-behind (LBC) children shows various negative impacts of parental absence on Chinese children. Left-behind children have greater risk of developing emotional problems, especially if duration of parental absence is long and the child was young when the parent(s) left. (Lee & Park, 2010) LBC are also more likely to engage in health adverse or risky behaviors, such as skipping breakfast, internet addiction, having ever smoked tobacco, drinking alcohol, suicide ideation, growth retardation, and being overweight or underweight. (Gao et al. pg.1-10 , 2010) (Canadian Medical Association, 2010) Stress as a result of prolonged parental separation and feelings of indifference, inferiority, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness are more common in LBC. (Gao et al., 2012) (Gong et al., 2012) These children often become introverted, have poor social coping skills, and learning disabilities. (Canadian Medical Association, 2010)
- China’s migrant population has exploded in past few decades as the country’s rapid economic growth and development in urban areas have attracted millions rural migrants. Rural-to-urban migrants flock to cities to provide the labor and services many urban dwellers will not. Although migrant workers will often earn higher income laboring in urban areas, they experience discrimination and do not have the benefits that urban residents are entitled to. Because of the hardship that migrants often face, many migrant parents chose to leave their children in the countryside under the care of family or friends. This study aims to understand the impact of parental absence or presence on rural children in China from a slightly different perspective from most of the existing literature on the subject. Most of the literature does not consider the gender of the parent who has migrated when investigating the impacts of parental migration on rural Children. (Jordan & Graham pg 1674, 2012) The impact of single parenthood in the context of parental migration and left-behind children (LBC) is also overlooked. Those studies which do consider single parenthood tend to focus on the absence of the father. (Lee & Park, 2010) Finally, much of the existing literature does not consider data at a multi-provincial level as it often focuses on one location or one province. The target audience for this paper will be those who are empowered to take action to resolve the problems that LBC face due to the absence of their parents. This audience includes: policy makers, local and central Chinese Government officials, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and the families and communities of children. This paper will hopefully aid readers by helping them to better understand how gender and single-parent hood impact LBC – a topic largely neglected in the literature.
- Sub-hypothesis of others.
- The adult most knowledgeable about the child that available at the time of the interview - hierarchy.
- http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/newsandcomingevents/t20110428_402722244.htm SEE UN DEFINATION OR INT. LABOR ORG. DEF. OF HOUSEHOLD? Because there is little country level data on left-behind children (LBC) in China, this study will be a nationwide cross-sectional study which aims to understand how parental presence or absence impacts LBC children at the time of the survey. To gain an accurate understanding of the impact of parental absence and presence on LBC this study will be large in scale, aiming to collect data from at least 10,000 rural children across China’s 33 provinces. To understand the impact on left-behind children specifically, the same data will be collected for both rural LBC and rural children living with both parents for contrast. This study will collect data for health and well-being indicators for rural children as well as personal information, like age, gender, and parental presence in the home. The same child indicators will be collected from the one of the child’s parents or the child’s primary caretaker. (In this study, primary caretaker is defined the adult (18 years or older) who provides most of the child’s day-to-day care.) All data will be collected through a cross-sectional survey. Since the most of the survey questions will be closed-ended requiring participants to choose from a given set of responses, most of the data collected will be ordinal or nominal. In order to accurately gage the impacts of parental absence and presence on child well-being and health, the survey will be somewhat lengthy and complex. A verbal survey administered by a trained interviewer would be best suited for this situation. A multistage, random cluster process will be used to draw sample by household classification. Survey administrators will be mostly graduate and post-graduate students and professionals. All survey administrators must be fluent in the local language/dialect in the town/village they are working in and must complete a three-day intensive training course. A pilot survey will be conducted first to test the instruments and procedures. This is done to determine how well participants understand the questions, how they formulate responses, and to test field conditions. Questions and answer options will also be re-evaluated to determine if there is any inconsistency or word/context bias.
- Once data has been properly collected and organized, researchers can begin to understand how the absence and presence of mothers and fathers in the household impacts the health and well-being of rural male and female children in China. The data analysis will be quantitative. Analysis of the indicators of health and well-being will be completed using statistical software, such as SPSS, STATA, or SASS. Most indicators will be nominal or ordinal, so univariate & bivariate analysis using Lambda & Gamma measures of association will be used. Some ordinal variables may be collapsed in order to perform univariate analysis on these indicators. For instance, child’s self-reported health status can be collapsed into positive or negative categories. Health statuses reported as “Excellent”, “Good”, or “Fair” could be collapsed into a new “positive health category” leaving those who reported their health status as “Poor” to be in a new “negative health category”. Bivariate analysis using Lambda and Gamma measures of association will also be completed. The nominal health and well-being indicators will be analyzed using Lambda measurements and ordinal indicators will be analyzed using Gamma measurements of association. Both ordinal and nominal data will consider mother/father absence or presence to be the independent variable and the health and well-being outcomes (indicators) to be the dependent variable. Lastly, chi-squared analysis will be completed for all indicators to assess the significance of the relationship between mother/father presence or absence and the health/well-being of rural male/female children.
- Maintaining ethical standards is particularly important for children and adolescents who live without one or more of their parents. Considerations such as the emotional or psychological stress of discussing absent parents, the social marginalization among peers, family, and community that these children may face, and the sub-standard legal system meant to protect the rights of these poor, rural children must all be taken into consideration. Because there are no publically available statistics on left-behind children (LBC) in China, direct methods of data collection, such as administered surveys, are necessary because such data is not otherwise available. At the same time, researchers who gather this information in order to develop and evaluate appropriate responses to the needs of children and adolescents must maintain high ethical standards in order to protect and respect them. Obtaining Consent Survey consent forms, information materials, and the survey for left-behind children (LBC) will be developed through discussions with experts. These tools will be translated locally into the region language or dialect, then back-translated, and field-tested before they are used. Because foreigners are rarely seen in rural China and such persons can become highly visible sources of local interest, this study will make an effort to only use survey administrators who are ethnically Chinese and speak the local language or dialect. Investigators will provide children/adolescents and their parent/guardian with information about the study and its aim in a manner that is appropriate to the local culture and both parties’ level of education. There will be both a child/adolescent and parent/guardian consent form; both the child/adolescent and parent/guardian must consent to the child/adolescent being in the study in order for the child/adolescent to participate. Interviews will emphasize to child/adolescent participants that their participation is not mandatory and that they have the right to stop or withdraw at any time. No incentives or compensation will be given for participation. Protecting Research Participants from Harm Survey administrators will undergo training and be coached to protect the children/adolescents’ best interests first and foremost. If for any reason the safety and security of a child/adolescent cannot be assured, the interviewer or survey administrator will not proceed. In an effort to mitigate emotional distress, the survey will be administered in the child’s home, in privacy and out of earshot of everyone else except for the interviewers or survey administrators. The child’s needs, age, gender, language, and ethnicity will all be taken into consideration. For instance, younger children may not be able to withstand a lengthy survey, so the survey may be broken into smaller sections administered with breaks in between. Also, female participants (and their parents) may prefer that their interviews are conducted by female survey administers and interviews. Ensuring Participant Confidentiality The age and gender of the child will be recorded at the beginning of the survey. Other than this information, no other personal identifiers will be recorded. Potential participants for the study will be selected randomly. Interviewers, survey administrators, and other staff will be trained to protect the confidentiality of participants and must formally agree to do so before hand. Confidentiality will be breached to provide immediate protection to the child/adolescent if it is revealed that he/she is being abused or otherwise harmed. A plan of action to handle such situations will be formed to handle such situations through the appropriate local authorities. Considerations for Working with the Chinese Government and Government Institutions This research will be carried out in coordination with local, provincial, and central government ministries and institutions. In China, such research would be impossible with out the sanction and support of multiple levels of government, but especially the central and provincial governments. For foreign or collaborative research in China, study methods and ethical standards must be approved by Chinese ethics committees, in addition to meeting the research standards of foreign nations and/or institutions. China has three levels of ethics committees – institutional, provincial, and national. Training of research personal may happen at all levels, but only central and provincial level health care administrations (ministries of health or ministries of public health) oversee research involving human subjects and ethical review.
- Survey Research Survey research has its disadvantages. One major disadvantage is the it prevents in depth questioning on the topic(s) being investigated. There are also many constraints to such research, especially where children are concerned, including: High professional standards that must be met Ethical standards to be complied with (including confidentiality) Institutional/cultural/international barriers and requirements Legal standards – both Chinese and international Technical limitations Transparency And, all of the above will inevitably contribute to higher costs and but pressure on budget constraints Also, collecting the right data correctly is vital because follow-ups with participants will not be possible, so there is little room for error. Cross-Sectional Design – Descriptive Research The cross-sectional survey will allow researchers make predications based on the correlation survey data. Considering that data on left-behind children in China is limited, such descriptive research could be a variable step towards understanding this population. This survey is basically an exploratory means of research. Thus, researchers can use the data to make inferences, but the level of cause and effect cannot be realistically measured because there may be other causes for the health and well-being outcomes reported other than parental absence/presence. However, this survey is a good start to understanding the relationship between mother/father absence/presence and health and well-being outcomes in rural left-behind children in China. Closed-Ended Questions The bulk of this survey consists of closed-ended questions, which means that participants must pick from a pre-selected group of possible answers. This can be problematic if the responses provided fail to reflect the participant’s reality. Also, closed-ended questions prevent further exploration in to the meaning of responses that might be possible with more open-ended questions. Sample This study’s sample will be made-up of both left-behind children (one or both parents has migrated) and children living with both of their parents; however, the classification of children into one group or the other will depend on their current household situation, not on past experiences. So if some children where previously left-behind children, but their parents now live in the household with them, some impacts of parental absence/presence on child health and well-being could be present in both categories of the sample. Such factors could complicate our understanding of parental absence/presence on rural Chinese children. Financial & Other Resource Limitations For an administered survey sampling process, cost and time can be major limiting factors. Well trained and competent survey administrators will be costly and the one-on-one data collection is time consuming. Generalizability It is important that the same accurately reflects the actual population. Because this study uses a stratified random sampling technique to select the sample, this helps to reduce error and increase the likelihood that the sample will be representative of the population. However, there is still potential for error when selecting the participants and researchers must be vigilant in order not to make mistakes. Creating a standardized survey for the general population of rural children might mean that questions and answers may not be suitable for some sample participants. Other Potential Errors In spite of efforts to reduce error, there is always potential for bias. Participant bias may be encountered if children try to give the socially desirable response to questions or have difficulty sharing incidences because they are painful or because they do not feel comfortable sharing such experiences. Interviewer bias is also a potential if survey administrators have pre-conceived ideas about answers or try to look for/favor certain responses. Human error is another possibility at every step of the process – planning, sample selection, survey administration, data collection and analysis, etc. – because much of this work will be carried out by individuals.