Parenting in a new world: migration, social class, and parenting, and links to academic outcomes in China

Abstract Existing research has conceptualized educational inequalities between migrant and urban youth in China primarily as an issue of differential access to education. Focusing on parenting practices and the intersection of migrant and social class status—and in particular parental education—we use a novel dataset of six-year-olds in Shanghai and show that although migrants, on average, use less effective parenting practices than urbanites overall, these differences reverse, or lessen, after taking parental education into account. Moreover, parental education is more important for both parenting and children’s education outcomes for migrant families than urban families, suggesting the differential importance of social class for migrant groups.