Parental migration and peer victimization: implications for school and psychological adjustment of left-behind adolescents in rural China

This one-year longitudinal study examined the relations of parental migration and peer victimization and their interactions with later academic and psychological functioning in Chinese adolescents. Participants included 1234 students in seventh grade (633 boys, mean age = 13.25 years) in a rural region of Anhui, China. Data on peer victimization, academic functioning, and psychological problems were obtained from peer nominations, teacher ratings, school records, and self-reports. Results showed that parental migration had significant and negative effects on later academic performance for adolescents who experienced high peer victimization. For adolescents who had not experienced peer victimization, whereas mother migration was not significantly associated with later academic performance, father migration positively contributed to increased academic achievement. In addition, adolescents with one parent who had migrated displayed more psychological problems than adolescents whose parents both migrated or did not migrate. The results suggest that parental migration may contribute differently to adolescent adjustment across domains and that the contributions may be moderated by individual social experiences with others and parental migration status. The results are discussed in the Chinese rural context.