“New work from the 15-year Gansu Survey of Children and Families highlights the long-term vulnerability of girls’ education, and particularly the education of eldest daughters, to poverty in middle childhood. Other work investigates the long-term implications of father absence due to labor migration for children’s educational attainment and highlights the reduced availability of literate adults in the household as a critical effect pathway.

A third recent study has found a reciprocal relationship between educational performance and depression over time, such that that lower-achieving students bear a major psychological burden from school system pressure to produce high achievement; this situation further reinforces the educational disadvantage of lower-achieving students.

Finally, a recently edited volume on rural education in China showcases field-based insights on the opportunities and inequalities faced by rural children and families from Gansu and other contexts over the first two decades of the 21st century.”