{"title":"Understanding the Impact of Cross-Border Migration on Children’s Well-Being in Mainland China and Hong Kong","authors":"Qiaobing Wu, Hui Qiu","doi":"10.1007/s11482-025-10481-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The colonial history of Hong Kong and its evolving immigration policies have shaped a unique composition of school-aged children from diverse residential and educational backgrounds. This study identified four types of students involved in the context of cross-border migration and examined the impacts of migration status, residential location, school location, and migration strategy on a wide set of indicators of children’s well-being. Based on a cross-sectional survey in mainland China and Hong Kong, a sample of 2,610 students was included in the analysis, including 348 New Immigrant Students (NIS), 445 Cross-border Students (CBS), 1,387 Hong Kong Local Students (HKLS), and 430 Hong-Kong born students in mainland China (HKMS). 25 indicators from 5 dimensions (physical health, mental health, resilience, educational outcomes, and interpersonal relationships) were selected to measure children’s well-being. Results of propensity score matching methods showed that NIS significantly outperformed HKLS, especially in indicators of mental health, resilience, educational outcomes, and interpersonal relationships; CBS and HKLS fared similarly across almost all well-being indicators; school location and family migration strategy brought both benefits and harms to children’s well-being. Findings of this study revealed that cross-border migration was complicated and its impact on children’s well-being was multi-faceted. This study contributed to the literature by providing a complete and comprehensive picture of the consequences of cross-border migration.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51483,"journal":{"name":"Applied Research in Quality of Life","volume":"20 4","pages":"1535 - 1557"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11482-025-10481-7.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Applied Research in Quality of Life","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11482-025-10481-7","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The colonial history of Hong Kong and its evolving immigration policies have shaped a unique composition of school-aged children from diverse residential and educational backgrounds. This study identified four types of students involved in the context of cross-border migration and examined the impacts of migration status, residential location, school location, and migration strategy on a wide set of indicators of children’s well-being. Based on a cross-sectional survey in mainland China and Hong Kong, a sample of 2,610 students was included in the analysis, including 348 New Immigrant Students (NIS), 445 Cross-border Students (CBS), 1,387 Hong Kong Local Students (HKLS), and 430 Hong-Kong born students in mainland China (HKMS). 25 indicators from 5 dimensions (physical health, mental health, resilience, educational outcomes, and interpersonal relationships) were selected to measure children’s well-being. Results of propensity score matching methods showed that NIS significantly outperformed HKLS, especially in indicators of mental health, resilience, educational outcomes, and interpersonal relationships; CBS and HKLS fared similarly across almost all well-being indicators; school location and family migration strategy brought both benefits and harms to children’s well-being. Findings of this study revealed that cross-border migration was complicated and its impact on children’s well-being was multi-faceted. This study contributed to the literature by providing a complete and comprehensive picture of the consequences of cross-border migration.
期刊介绍：
The aim of this journal is to publish conceptual, methodological and empirical papers dealing with quality-of-life studies in the applied areas of the natural and social sciences. As the official journal of the ISQOLS, it is designed to attract papers that have direct implications for, or impact on practical applications of research on the quality-of-life. We welcome papers crafted from interdisciplinary, inter-professional and international perspectives. This research should guide decision making in a variety of professions, industries, nonprofit, and government sectors, including healthcare, travel and tourism, marketing, corporate management, community planning, social work, public administration, and human resource management. The goal is to help decision makers apply performance measures and outcome assessment techniques based on concepts such as well-being, human satisfaction, human development, happiness, wellness and quality-of-life. The Editorial Review Board is divided into specific sections indicating the broad scope of practice covered by the journal. The section editors are distinguished scholars from many countries across the globe.
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