Multidimensional poverty among middle-school children from rural China: The impact of teacher support

This study examines child multidimensional poverty (CMP) in rural middle schools from the perspective of teacher-student relationships, aiming to enhance children’s welfare. Utilizing data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS, 2013–2015), this paper measures CMP via the Alkire–Foster method and explores teacher support’s impact on CMP through a series of robustness checks. The findings reveal that among the six dimensions (learning, comprehensive ability, participation, health, interest & curiosity, and future expectations), the health dimension has the highest poverty incidence, while the participation dimension contributes the most to CMP. Notably, teacher support, encompassing communication support, emotional support, responsibility support, and patience support, significantly alleviates CMP. Moderating mechanism indicates that favorable family cultural backgrounds attenuate this impact. The findings underscore teacher support’s crucial role in mitigating CMP, particularly for children from disadvantaged family cultural backgrounds. Recommendations are proposed regarding CMP status and teacher support, including strengthening children’s nutrition and physical education programs, reducing academic pressure, improving teacher evaluation systems, and establishing effective teacher-family information feedback platforms. In conclusion, this paper provides a comprehensive CMP measurement, identifies its primary causes, and underscores the pivotal role of teacher support in mitigating CMP.