Early Childhood Development and Social Mobility in China - Article review and analytical framework

Oct 15, 2026

Infancy and early childhood are presented as decisive stages for building cognitive and socioemotional skills that shape later academic performance, labor-market prospects, and broader socioeconomic achievement. Drawing on evidence from China and internationally, the study reviews how nurturing quality diverges by social class, fostering intergenerational advantage or disadvantage and weakening social mobility. It synthesizes theories and empirical findings and proposes a comparative analytical framework for future research in China using CFPS data.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Purpose

Design/Approach/Methods

Findings

Originality/Value

Introduction

Income inequality and intergenerational mobility

Education, status attainment, and family influence

Life-course perspective and human capital foundations

Early Childhood Development and Social Mobility in China Xiaogang Wu (吴晓刚) NYU Shanghai & New York University ECNU Review of Education 2024, Vol. 7(4) 991–1008 © The Author(s) 2024 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[DOI: 10.1177/20965311241240479](DOI: 10.1177/20965311241240479)[ ](DOI: 10.1177/20965311241240479)[journals.sagepub.com/home/roe](journals.sagepub.com/home/roe) Xin Li (李欣) NYU Shanghai Jia Miao (缪佳) NYU Shanghai Abstract Purpose: Infancy and early childhood are critical stages for the development of both cognitive and socioemotional skills, which are predictive of subsequent academic success, labor market outcomes, and socioeconomic achievement. Empirical research both in China and in other countries has revealed that nurturing quality is increasingly divergent among social classes, leading to intergenerational accumulation of advantage/disadvantage, declining social mobility, and exacerbating class inequality. The article aims to systematically examine existing theoretical and empirical research on early childhood development and social mobility and provide a holistic comparative and analytical framework for future research in the context of China. Design/Approach/Methods: This article systematically reviews relevant theories and empirical research in the ﬁeld and provides preliminary ﬁndings of early childhood education investment in China, using the data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Speciﬁcally, the article focuses on the differences in early childhood education investment and child development among families of different socioeconomic statuses and discusses the potential impact of these differences on children’s future development. Corresponding author: Xiaogang Wu, Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER), NYU Shanghai, 456 West Yangsi Road, Shanghai 200124, China. [Email: xw29@nyu.edu](Email: xw29@nyu.edu) Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as speciﬁed on the SAGE and Open Access page ([https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage](https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)). Findings: The ﬁndings of this study reveal distinct patterns in early childhood education investment and child development across diverse socioeconomic strata in China. China’s initiatives to enhance children’s education and human capital have robust theoretical foundations and timely policy implications. However, despite the ongoing efforts, early childhood parenting and education programs lack systematic research, emphasizing the urgent need for intervention programs and comprehensive databases to inform evidence-based policymaking. Originality/Value: The article concludes with a comprehensive analytical framework for the study of early childhood development and social mobility in China, which has implications for promoting human capital investment and facilitating social mobility. Keywords Child development, human capital investment, intervention, life course, parenting, social mobility Date received: 21 August 2023; revised: 11 November 2023; accepted: 2 January 2024 Introduction The polarization between the rich and the poor and the ensuing issues of social mobility and stratiﬁcation are perennial topics of interest for social scientists. Economic research shows that the more unequal the income distribution, the higher the intergenerational income elasticities and the weaker the intergenerational income mobility (e.g., Björklund & Jäntti, 2009) . Sociologists also pay extensive attention to the

FAQs

What is the article’s main purpose?

It systematically reviews theoretical and empirical research on early childhood development and social mobility and proposes a holistic comparative analytical framework for future work in China.

What methods and data does the article use?

It reviews relevant theories and empirical studies and presents preliminary findings on China’s early childhood education investment using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS).

What do the findings indicate about early childhood investment in China?

Distinct patterns emerge across socioeconomic strata in both early childhood education investment and child development, with policy-relevant implications while also highlighting limited systematic research on parenting and education programs.

Oct 15, 2026

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