Does the timing of parental migration matter for child growth? A life course study on left-behind children in rural China

Table 3 Estimates (standard errors) of weight and growth curve models fitted to boys and girls

	Boys		Girls
Fixed effects	Model 1^a	Model 2^b	Model 1^a	Model 2^b
Intercept	20.91 (0.18)	21.20 (0.41)	20.76 (0.24)	21.24 (0.50)
Age (mean centred at age 7)	2.46 (0.05)	2.41 (0.05)	2.57 (0.06)	2.48 (0.06)
Age²	0.08 (0.01)	0.08 (0.01)	0.09 (0.01)	0.08 (0.01)
Left-behind stage (reference group never left behind child aged 7)
Never left behind	0	0	0	0
In early childhood only	0.71 (0.50)	0.76 (0.47)	0.06 (0.65)	0.10 (0.58)
In early and later childhood	−1.04 (0.65)	−0.49 (0.59)	−0.15 (0.84)	0.40 (0.74)
In later childhood only	−0.89 (0.41)	−0.49 (0.37)	−1.28 (0.55)	−0.81 (0.48)
Deviance statistics	10.26	5.72	5.66	3.51
P-value for Chi-square (df = 3)	0.02	0.13	0.13	0.32
Interactions (reference group never left behind child aged 7):
Age × Left-behind stage:
In early childhood only	−0.30 (0.20)	−0.30 (0.20)	0.13 (0.19)	0.10 (0.19)
In early and later childhood	−0.01 (0.16)	−0.03 (0.16)	0.08 (0.19)	0.05 (0.18)
In later childhood only	−0.21 (0.10)	−0.16 (0.10)	−0.20 (0.11)	−0.21 (0.11)
Age² × Left-behind stage:
In early childhood only	−0.08 (0.03)	−0.08 (0.03)	0.03 (0.03)	0.02 (0.03)
In early and later childhood	0.04 (0.03)	0.04 (0.03)	−0.02 (0.03)	−0.01 (0.03)
In later childhood only	−0.00 (0.02)	−0.00 (0.02)	0.01 (0.02)	0.02 (0.02)
Deviance statistics	15.97	13.89	6.42	7.15
P-value for Chi-square (df = 6)	0.01	0.03	0.38	0.31
−2 Log likelihood	7567.18	7416.62	5709.49	5589.92

^aAdjusts for age, age², left-behind stages, and the interaction effects between age × left-behind stage, and age² × left-behind stage
^bAdditionally adjusts for covariates, e.g., gender, only child, child insurance, maternal education, maternal weight, household size, household income per capita, asset score, wave, and province, which are not reported here

ISSN: 1471-2458