The silver lining of parental migration on left-behind adolescents' academic well-being in China: A systematic review

Abstract

The well-being, particularly academic performance, of left-behind children (LBC) by their migrant parents has been studied. Although extensive literature pronounces the adverse impact of parental migration on LBC's academic outcomes, a growing body of evidence has found that these children might perform equally or even better academically than non-left-behind children (NLBC), which inspires the present review. This innovative study has systematically reviewed previous studies to provide evidence of a silver lining for parental migration and its implications. We searched for relevant studies from reliable sources and screened them between January and April 2023, following the PRISMA guidelines. After two authors independently screened the title, abstract and full text, 11 potential studies that met the inclusion/exclusion criteria were reviewed. The results indicate that eight eligible studies found no significant difference in academic performance between LBC and NLBC, while the remaining studies showed that LBC outperformed NLBC. Additionally, the age of left-behind children, the duration and reasons for parental migration and household remittance practices were key factors in determining the resilience of LBCs towards academic engagement and performance. The present review findings suggest that future studies need to examine the positive consequence of parental migration on LBCs' academic and nonacademic outcomes by performing rigorous and robust methodology that unfolds and provides casual relationships, which insist on feasible practical and policy effective implications.