Poster #54 - Development Trajectories of Maladaptive Adjustment among Rural-to-Urban Migrant Children and Urban Children in China

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Due to the rapid urbanization and industrialization in China in the past few decades, an increasing number of rural adults migrated to urban areas for employment. Migrant children, who are living with their migrating parents, are likely to suffer more challenges (e.g., higher rates of loneliness, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and problem behaviors) as compared to their urban peers. However, literature has paid inadequate attention to the developmental trajectories of specific risks among migrant children in China. In addition, no study has compared the developmental trajectories of these risks between migrant children and urban children. Such investigation may inform research and practice that specifically focus on the development of migrant children. Accordingly, this study examined developmental trajectories of several key risks, including loneliness, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and problem behaviors, among three groups of youth, including migrant children in public school, migrant children in private school, and urban children, across four time points during a two-year period.

Four waves of longitudinal data were collected across two years from 1,429 participants (818 boys) from Grades 4 to 6 in three schools in Beijing, China, including 546 (38.6%) migrant children in public schools, 551 (38.2%) migrant children in private schools, 303 (21.2%) urban children, and 29 (2.0%) missing on this information. Participants completed a survey involving scales assessing loneliness, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and problem behaviors at each time point.

We conducted latent growth-curve modeling (LGM) analyses to examine the developmental trajectories of four indicators of maladaptive development for all participants. All models fit the data well: CFI = .97-.99, TLI = .97-.99, RMSEA = .03-.06, SRMR = .03-.05. Across the four waves, all participants’ ratings showed significant decrease for anxiety (Slope =-.02, p < .05), depressive symptoms (Slope = -.02, p < .05), loneliness (Slope =-.03, p < .05) but had significant increase for problem behaviors (Slope =.01, p < .05). Multi-group GLM analyses for each indicator of maladaptive development across three groups (Table 1) showed that: 1. When the slopes of anxiety, depressive symptoms, and loneliness were constrained to be equal across three youth groups, model fits were not significantly improved, indicating that the pattern of changes (increase or decrease) in these indicators were similar across all three youth groups over time. However, the slope of problem behaviors was significantly different between migrant children in private school and migrant children in public school, indicating that the increase in problem behaviors among migrant children in public school (Slope =.02, p < .05) is significantly larger than migrant children in private school (Slope =.01, p < .05).

In addition, as presented in Table 2, migrant children in private school reported the highest scores in anxiety (Wave 1 to 3), depressive symptoms (Wave 1 to 3), loneliness (Wave 1 to 4), and problem behavior (Waves 1 and 2). However, migrant children in public school did not reported significant differences in most of the indicators across waves, with exceptions for scores in anxiety at Waves 1. Findings and implications are discussed.

Authors

• Shaobing Su, Tufts University
  Presenting Author

• Xu Liu, Beijing Normal University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Danhua Lin, Beijing Normal University
  Non-Presenting Author