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• Parental belief is associated with Child social-emotional development. • Parental investments mediate parental belief and child development. • The mediation effects vary across investments and developmental outcomes. • The varieties of play materials and activities are the strongest mediators. Parental investments are associated with early child outcomes, and some evidences outside China suggest that parental belief might affect parental investments. However, the interrelationships of parental belief, parental investments, and early child development has not been well documented in China. This paper aims to study the interrelationships between the caregiver's parental belief, the caregiver's parental investments, and the child's early developmental outcomes in rural China. A total of 1787 sample households in an undeveloped rural area of western China are enrolled in the cross-sectional study. A parental belief questionnaire, the Family Care Indicators (FCI), the Bayley Scales of Infant Development version III (BSID-III), and a socioeconomic questionnaire were used to measure the caregiver's parental belief on parenting practices, the caregiver's parental investments, the child's early developmental outcomes, and the socioeconomic characteristics of sample households, respectively. The mediation model was then applied to estimate the interrelationships. The results find that the caregiver's parental investments significantly mediate in the relationships between the caregiver's parental belief and the child's early developmental outcomes. Through parental investments, one standard deviation (SD) increase in the caregiver's parental belief is corresponding to 3% of one SD increase in the child's four developmental outcomes (cognition, language, motor, and social–emotion) respectively. For future studies aimed at designing targeted interventions on early child development in rural China, the key findings of this paper might be informative. Early interventions aimed at strengthening the caregiver's subjective belief on parenting practices and increasing the parental investments in the household might be effective to improve the development of rural children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the effect of a national salt iodization program on the cognition of school-aged children in China. We focus on the role of gender preferences. Linking pre-eradication iodine deficiency rates with household survey data, we find a strong positive impact of prenatal exposure to the program on cognition and schooling for girls. For boys, we find no effect. Child preferences play an important role in parental investment decisions and impact program effects. We find that parents invest more in girls with a high initial endowment. For boys, this is different. Parents invest in boys, irrespective of their initial endowment. The nationally implemented program may therefore primarily benefit low endowment girls. We then exploit village-level variation in gender attitudes and find that gender attitudes are related to parental investment behavior and that the program's impact is stronger for girls born to parents with strong preferences for boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how a severe parental health shock affects children's school achievements using a rich longitudinal dataset of Danish children. We use coarsened exact matching to control for potential endogeneity between parental health and children's school outcomes and employ cancer specific survival rates to measure the size of the health shock. We find robust negative (albeit small) effects of a parental health shock on children's basic school grades as well as their likelihood of starting and finishing secondary education, especially for poor prognosis cancers. We observe different outcomes across children's gender and age and gender of the ill parent, but no effects of family-related resilience factors such as parental education level. The effects appear to be driven by non-pecuniary costs rather than by pecuniary costs. Moreover, we find that the negative effects on school performance increase in the size of the health shock for both survivors and non-survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Parental investment and skill mediate caregiver mental health and child development. • Caregiver depression are more harmful to parenting practices and child development. • The variety of play material has significant mediation effect on child development. • Coercive parenting mediate caregiver mental health and child development. Parenting practices are associated with early childhood development (ECD), and some evidences suggest that mental health might affect parenting practices. However, the interrelationships of mental health, parenting practices, and ECD outcomes have not yet been well documented in developing contexts like rural China. This paper aims to investigate the interrelationships between the caregiver's mental health, parenting practices, and the child's ECD outcomes in rural China. A total of 1787 sample households in an undeveloped rural area of western China are enrolled in the study. A socioeconomic questionnaire, the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale, the Family Care Indicators, the Parent and Family Adjustment Scales, and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development version III were used to measure the socioeconomic characteristics of sample households, the caregiver's mental health, parental investments and parenting skills, and the child's development outcomes, respectively. Mediation model was then applied to estimate the interrelationships. The results showed that parental practices significantly mediated between the caregiver's mental health and the child's cognition, language, motor, and social–emotion development. Through parental investments, one standard deviation increases in the caregiver's mental health test score was associated with the decline in the child's four development scores by 0.6% standard deviation, respectively. Through parenting skills, one standard deviation increases in the caregiver's mental health test score was associated with the decline in the child's language and social-emotional score by 2% and 5% standard deviation, respectively. Different dimensions of caregiver mental health, parental investments and skills played heterogeneous roles in the interrelationships. Early interventions aimed at improving the caregiver's mental health, parental investments and skills are important and might be effective to improve early childhood development in rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]