Population Migration and Children’s School Enrollments in China, 1990-2005

This paper examines the impact of migration on children’s educational well-being by analyzing the micro-data from Chinese population censuses in 1990 and 2000 and minicensus in 2005. We match school-age children (6-15 years old) with their parents, and examine how migration status and parents’ absence affect children’s school enrollment. We also compare migrant children with their peers in both origin and destination counties. Results show that cross-county and cross-provincial migrant children are less likely to be enrolled in school than local children and within-county migrant children, and that children of rural hukou status are particularly disadvantaged in school enrollment over the whole examined period. Migrant children fare significantly worse than non-migrant children in both origins and destinations, although their disadvantages in school attendance tend to diminish as they spend more time in destinations.