Economic growth and socioeconomic changes have transformed nearly every aspect of childhood in China, and many are worried by the increasing prevalence of mental health issues among children, particularly depression. To provide insight into the distribution of depressive symptoms among children in China and identify vulnerable groups, we use data from the 2012 China Family Panel Survey (CFPS), a survey that collected data from a large, nationally representative sample of the Chinese population. Using the CFPS data, we construct a sample of 2679 children aged 10–15 years old from 25 provinces in China. According to our results, the incidence of depression varies by geographic area. Specifically, we find that rates of depressive symptoms are significantly lower in urban areas (14% of sample children) than in rural areas (23% of sample children). Our results also show that children from ethnic minorities, from poorer families, and whose parents are depressed are more likely to be depressed than other children. In contrast, we find that depressive symptoms do not vary by gender.

China’s rapid urbanization in the past several decades have been accompanied by rural labor migration. An important question that has emerged is whether rural labor migration has a positive or negative impact on the depressive symptoms of children left behind in the countryside by their migrating parents. This paper uses a nationally representative panel dataset to investigate whether parental migration impacts the prevalence of depressive symptoms among left-behind children in China. Using DID and PSM-DID methods, our results show that parental migration significantly increases the depression scores of 10 and 11-year-old children by 2 points using the CES-D depression scale. Furthermore, we also find that the negative effect of decreased parental care is stronger than the positive effect of increased income in terms of determining the depressive symptoms status of children in rural China.

In recent years, migrant workers, defined as people who move from Chinese rural areas to cities in other parts of the country to find work, have experienced slowed wage growth. An important question that has emerged is whether depressive symptoms have a significant relationship with migrant worker wages. This paper uses a nationally representative panel dataset to examine the overall association of depressive symptoms and migrant worker wages in China and explores the indirect mechanisms through which these impacts occur. Using the Coarsened Exact Matching method, our results show that depressive symptoms have a significant direct negative relationship with migrant worker wages, and that this relationship is consistent. Furthermore, we also find that depressive symptoms can reduce migrant worker wages indirectly by increasing the frequency of job conversion or by shortening work duration.

Migrant workers (MWS) are a large population (277 million by the end of 2015) in China, to date, very limited studies have focused on mental health of MWS especially with a nationally representative database. This study aims to provide insight into the distribution of depression outcomes of migrants in China and identify relatively more vulnerable groups. To achieve this, we used China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) database containing 5913 observations, spanning 25 provinces in China conducted in 2012. Our results indicated that the distribution of depression, estimated with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), was uneven among subgroups of MWS. The findings showed that MWS were more susceptible to depression than adults with a city hukou. Economic status, education levels, and self-rated health had negative relationships with the depression outcomes among MWS. Otherwise, Migrants that were male performed better in depression than those female. Using the results, this research can provide references and help for government decision making for raising the depression outcomes among MWS.