Social exclusion and multi-domain well-being in Chinese migrant children: Exploring the psychosocial mechanisms of need satisfaction and need frustration

While it is well established that social exclusion has negative effects on well-being, there have been few thorough investigations into the mediating mechanisms through which social exclusion affects the well-being of children. Combining the social exclusion framework with the self-determination theory, this study aims to examine whether the satisfaction and frustration of psychosocial needs for autonomy, relatedness and competence mediated the relationships between social exclusion and well-being of migrant children. The study drew on a sample of 484 Chinese migrant children (mean age = 11.65, 52.9% girls) residing in Kunming, China. A sequential mediation model was tested using structural equation modeling to validate our hypotheses. The results indicated that a higher level of structural-economic exclusion was associated with a higher level of socio-relational exclusion, which in turn pointed to a negative association with need satisfaction and a positive association with need frustration, thereby explaining lower levels of child well-being. The present study expands current knowledge and deepens our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of how social exclusion affects child well-being and sheds light on practical implications for policymakers and social workers to promote the well-being of migrant children in China.