A Study on the Types of Intergenerational Education in Rural China and Its Influence on the Education of Left-behind Children

Intergenerational parenting has become an important model of child rearing in current families, and grandparents play an important role in the growth process of rural left-behind children. It is particularly important to explore the impact of intergenerational parenting on academic performance of rural left-behind children as comprehensively as possible. Based on the data of the 2013-2014 Chinese Education Panel Survey(CEPS), this paper empirically studies the causal effect of intergenerational parenting and academic performance of rural left-behind children. The results show that: compared with the control group raised by parents, the provision of intergenerational education is generally beneficial to the improvement of the academic performance of rural left-behind children, and the effect of complete intergenerational education is the most obvious; Heterogeneity analysis found that, compared with the left-behind girls and only children, the left-behind boys and non-only children were more significantly affected by the left-behind boys and non-only children. With the accelerated development of China’s aging population and the implementation of the three-child policy, there will be more and more non-only-child and intergenerational families. Relevant policies should be introduced to optimize the family model of intergenerational education to improve the education quality of children and make full use of aging human resources to promote children's learning and physical and mental health.