Using a survey of 19,977 children in two provinces, this paper explores the prevalence, correlates and potential consequences of poor vision among children in China's vast but understudied rural areas. We find that 24% of sample students suffer from reduced uncorrected visual acuity in either eye and 16% in both eyes. Poor vision is significantly correlated with individual, parental and family characteristics, with modest magnitudes for all correlates but home province and grade level. The results also suggest a possible adverse impact of poor vision on academic performance and mental health, particularly among students with severe poor vision.

Background and Objectives: Development during the first two years of life is critical and has a lasting impact on a child’s health. Poor child nutrition can lead to a weakened immune system and deficiencies in essential micronutrients, which in turn have lasting and detrimental impacts on a child’s development. Recent studies in rural Shaanxi Province found an anemia prevalence of 54.3% among rural children aged six to twelve months. While new large-scale, quantitative research has begun to catalogue the extent of child malnutrition and anemia, no effort has yet been made to look more closely at the potential reasons for rural children’s nutritional deficiencies through a more richly textured qualitative analysis. This study aims to elucidate some of the fundamental causes of poor feeding practices that may lead to anemia among children in rural Shaanxi Province, China.

Methodology: We interviewed a total of sixty caregivers from villages participating in a study of 1808 families enrolled in a larger survey of child health and nutrition outcomes. We conducted three waves of interviews with children’s primary caregivers in seventeen rural villages within four nationally-designated poverty counties in the southern part of Shaanxi Province.

Results: The qualitative analysis reveals that poor infant feeding practices are persistent across our qualitative sample. Information gathered from our qualitative interviews suggests that proper feeding practices are impeded by two constraints: a lack of knowledge on infant nutrition and inadequate sources of accurate information on the topic. We find that the poverty does not appear to constrain child feeding practices.

Conclusion: Our research uncovers an absence of accurate information on infant nutrition, which hampers caregiver efforts to provide adequate nutrition to their children. This situation ultimately results in the failure of caregivers to supply an age-appropriate micronutrient-rich diet that can stimulate children’s physical and cognitive development, the absence of which may lead to iron-deficiency anemia among children. We suggest that steps be taken to educate caregivers in nutritional care for their infants

Objectives: To test whether text message reminders sent to caregivers will improve the effectiveness of a home micronutrient fortification program in western China.

Methods: A cluster-randomized controlled trial was carried out in 351 villages in Shaanxi province in 2013-14. We enrolled children aged 6-12 months in target villages. Each village/cluster was randomly assigned into one of three groups: Free Delivery Group (FDG; caregivers received free micronutrient packets); Text Messaging Group (TMG; FDG treatment plus daily text message); and Control Group. We collected information on compliance with treatments and hemoglobin concentrations from all children at baseline and 6-month follow-up. We estimated the intent-to-treat (ITT) effects on compliance and child anemia using a logistic regression model, controlling for infant, caregiver and household characteristics.

Results: There were 1393 eligible children. We found that assignment to TMG led to an increase full compliance (marginal effect = 0.10, 95% CI = 0.03, 0.16) and decrease in the rate of anemia at endline (marginal effect=-0.07, 95% CI= -0.12, -0.01).

Conclusions: Text messages improved compliance of caregivers to a home fortification program and children’s nutrition.

Abstract: Using three-wave survey data for four villages of Jiangsu Province in China, the present paper examines whether and to what extent off-farm employment affects the technical efficiency of agricultural production. The level of technical efficiency is measured using a stochastic frontier production function approach. Based on estimation results from instrumental variable panel quantile regressions we find that there is a positive significant effect of off-farm employment on the level of farm technical efficiency. We also find that fragmentation of farmland is a barrier to the improvement of technical efficiency. In addition, we find a downward trend in the level of agricultural technical efficiency among our sample. Therefore, the Chinese Government should stimulate agricultural mechanization and the development of farming techniques to improve technical efficiency in the context of increasing off-farm employment.

 Supplemental Tables to the paper: "Impact of Teacher Professional Development Program on Student Achievement in China"

Students in rural China are dropping out of secondary school at troubling rates. While there is considerable quantitative research on this issue, no systematic effort has been made to assess the deeper reasons behind student decision making through a mixed-methods approach. This article seeks to explore the prevalence, correlates and potential reasons for rural dropout throughout the secondary education process. It brings together results from eight large-scale survey studies covering 24,931 rural secondary students across four provinces, as well as analysis of extensive interviews with 52 students from these same study sites. The results show that the cumulative dropout rate across all windows of secondary education may be as high as 63 per cent. Dropping out is significantly correlated with low academic performance, high opportunity cost, low socioeconomic status and poor mental health. A model is developed to suggest that rural dropout is primarily driven by two mechanisms: rational cost-benefit analysis or impulsive, stress-induced decision making. 

Nearly nine years following the release of the Center for Global Development’s When Will We Ever Learn? Improving Lives Through Impact Evaluation report, and almost a decade into increased focus on evaluation among global donors, many in the research community are reflecting on the state of the impact evaluation field, whether the development community is learning what was hoped to from impact evaluations and where the future of impact evaluation leads. 

As part of this reflection, in this paper we will explore the recent past, current status and future of impact evaluation of development interventions. 

New research on the political economy of policy-induced distortions to incentives for optimal resource use in agriculture and insights from the study of the dramatic reforms in former state-controlled economy has led to enhanced insights on the role of governance structures on policy making in agricultural and natural resources. This paper reviews these research developments and key new insights.