The impact of caregiver mental health on child development in rural China: The role of parenting practices and educational investments

This study investigates how caregiver mental health influences early childhood development, contributing new evidence to the literature on intergenerational human capital formation. While prior research has linked caregiver well-being to child outcomes, longitudinal multi-wave evidence remains limited. Using a five-wave panel dataset from rural China (2015–2021), we apply fixed-effects models to estimate the impact of caregiver depression, anxiety, and stress on child development. We find that poor mental health significantly impairs children's socio-emotional skills—especially when symptoms occur early in life and when the caregiver is the mother—but shows no measurable effect on cognitive skills. Mechanism analysis identifies three pathways: lower parenting quality, reduced time and material investment, and increased neglect. These findings highlight caregiver mental health as an critical but often overlooked determinant of child development, with important implications for poverty alleviation, early childhood policy, and human capital strategies in low-resource, aging societies.