The impact of parental migration on non-cognitive abilities of left behind children in northwestern China

Despite the vast literature surrounding various aspects of left behind children (LBC)’s development in China, very few studies have examined the development of, and impact on their non-cognitive abilities as a result of parental migration. Using survey data consisting of 5002 eighth graders from 160 middle schools in northwestern China, this paper investigates how parental migration affects children’s non-cognitive abilities, as is measured by Big Five components of conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness, as well as children’s grit. We narrow our analysis to long run and short run migration subsamples and use the propensity score matching method to address the potential selection bias issue. Our results show that mother’s migration is particularly harmful to the development of children’s non-cognitive abilities, as mother is usually the primary caregiver and mother’s migration makes less economic contribution to the family. In the long run, LBC with migrant mother tend to have lower levels of conscientiousness and grit; they also have higher level of neuroticism (or lower level of emotional stability). In the short run, when mother migrates, children tend to have lower levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness.     

Fostering non-cognitive skills and academic performance: Experimental evidence from women’s-only colleges in Pakistan

We conduct a randomized control trial to investigate the effect of a soft-skills intervention that highlights the role of beliefs about perseverance on non-cognitive skills, effort, and academic performance of college students. We have a sample of 366 undergraduate students from women-only and public colleges in a major metropolitan city in Pakistan. We find that a brief discussion stressing perseverance and a constructive interpretation of failures led to increased level of grit among treated students one year after the intervention. However, we find no significant increase in hours of study and college attendance after one year or test scores two and nine months after the intervention. Our findings suggest that soft-touch interventions may impact non-cognitive skills, but they can be insufficient for improving academic achievement.