Effect of Migration on Children's Educational Performance in Rural China, The

Migration is one of the main ways of alleviating poverty in developing countries, including China. However, there are concerns about the potential negative effects of migration on the educational achievement of the children that are left behind in villages when one or both of their parents out-migrate to cities. This paper examines changes in school performance before and after the parents of students out-migrate. Surprisingly, we find that there is no significant negative effect of migration on school performance. In fact, we find that educational performance improves in migrant households in which the father out-migrates.