Recent decades have witnessed unprecedented growth and scale of internal, voluntary, temporary, economic-driven rural-to-urban migration in China. Nationwide, about 15% of all rural families have at least one family member who migrated to urban areas. Although research on how these migrants fare in terms of socioeconomic achievements, cultural integration, and health and healthcare outcomes is burgeoning, little work has been done to explore how the children of these rural-to-urban migrants, who are left behind in the sending rural community, fare in terms of key developmental outcomes. Presumably, parental absence is harmful due to lessened family control, support, guidance, and parent-child bonding. On the other hand, if the child is being taken good care of by responsible custodians such as grandparents or relatives, perhaps the injurious effects of parental absence will be mitigated. This research attempts to contribute to the literature by examining social contexts of child development among migrant and non-migrant families in rural China. Migrant families are defined as having at least one parent who migrated to urban areas. Using cross-sectional data collected in rural areas of the Hunan province, this study examines whether children in rural areas of migrant versus non-migrant families differ in three important developmental outcomes: satisfaction with life and study, positive health behavior, and school engagement. Moreover, we explore how family socioeconomic status, family structure, family social capital, peer relationship, teacher support at school, and intra-personal psychological factors are linked to child development and whether these associations vary according to the child's family migrant status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]