Comment on “The Effect of Parental Absence on Child Development in Rural China”

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12168
• Author: Jinyoung Kim
• Published date: 01 January 2017
• Date: 01 January 2017

Comment on “TheEffectofParentalAbsence

on Child Development in Rural China”

Jinyoung KIM†

Korea Universityand Institute for the Study of Labor(IZA)

JEL codes: J24, J61

Theoretical and empirical studies in economics generally indicate that human capital

accumulation is a key driving force for individual productivity in and out of the labor

market as well as for the economic development of a society. It goes without saying that

it takes substantial resources of various types for individuals and the society to accumulate

human capital.

The findings in Wu and Zhang (2017) clearly demonstrate the high costs associated

with the human capital accumulation of children at home. The presence and involvement

of parents in the accumulation process is reported to be critical in their children’shuman

capital formation beyond formal education and training, and the opportunity cost of time

for parents is certainly not trivial.

Moreover, Wu and Zhang (2017) find that it is not just children’s academic

achievements(that is, cognitive skills) thatare affected by parental investment, but it is also

their personaltraits (non-cognitive skills)which can help them achieve betterperformances

in the labor market, in school, and in many other domains. The effect of parental time

investment (or the lack of it) on children’s cognitive skills has been evidenced in earlier

studies, including a paper coauthored by Zhang (Zhang et al., 2014). However, Wu and

Zhang demonstrate that the parental influence reaches far beyond the cognitive skills of

children: in the formation of their non-cognitive skills children can also be adversely

affected by their parents’absence.

Wu and Zhang’s findingsrelating to the parental influence on children’s non-cognitive

skills delivers an important message on the importance of parental involvement in

children’shuman capital formation topolicy makers because it is notedin the literature that

parental investment in forming children’s non-cognitive skills is not easily substitutable

with market services such as tutoring, while cognitive skills can be instilled into children

using market services.

Wu and Zhang patentlyenhance our understanding of how parental investment affects

the formation of non-cognitive as well as cognitive skills in children. I find, nonetheless,

several issuesthat may need the Wu and Zhang’s closer attentionfor improving their paper

or for future research.

First, althoughmost measures for non-cognitiveskills used in the literature arebased on

self-reportedsurveys as in this paper, I am concerned aboutthe validity of the Piers-Harris

Self-ConceptScale (PH) as a measure. I agreewith Kautz et al. (2014 ) that all skills, inclu ding

†Correspondence: Jinyoung Kim, Department of Economics, Korea University, 145 Anam-ro,

Seongbuk-ku, Seoul, Korea, 02841. Email: jinykim@korea.ac.kr

doi: 10.1111/aepr.12168 Asian EconomicPolicy Review (2017) 12, 137–138

©2017 JapanCenter for EconomicResearch 137

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