Influences of monetary and non-monetary family resources on children's development in verbal ability in China

This paper addresses the debate over the significance of family's monetary versus non-monetary resources for children's achievement and development, within the context of contemporary China. We use data from the 2010 baseline survey of the China Family Panel Study to examine the relevance of several proposed determinants in Chinese children's cognitive achievement. Our findings suggest that: (1) family income is significantly associated with children's achievement, but family's assets and direct measures of monetary resources are found to have little effect; (2) non-monetary resources, particularly parenting, are of great importance to children's achievement; (3) parenting practices do not vary greatly by family's economic resources.