Page 22 - IJPS-3-2

International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Consequences of forced migration
during early childhood on

cognitive well-being in later

childhood in Andhra Pradesh, India

*
Ashish Kumar Upadhyay , Swati Srivastava and Chhavi Paul
International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India

Abstract: Unlike its short-term impact on consumption and income, forced migration
is expected to deliver a permanent shock to the overall well-being of households,
specifically children in the stage of infancy. Studies on the effect of forced migration on
child cognitive well-being are few in number. Therefore, the present study is intended
to examine the consequences of forced migration during infancy on child cognition at
later age. We hypothesized that the effect of forced migration on child cognitive well-
ARTICLE INFO
Received: April 27, 2017 being can be mitigated by social support. The study used longitudinal data from three
Accepted: June 18, 2017 waves of the Young Lives Study (YLS) conducted in 2002, 2006–2007, and 2009 in the
Published Online: June 25,
2017 state of Andhra Pradesh, India. We used bivariate and multivariate regression models to
*CORRESPONDING AUTHOR analyze the consequences of forced migration in early childhood on the cognitive well-
Ashish Kumar Upadhyay, being in later childhood. The information on forced migration was collected in Wave
International Institute for
Population Sciences, Govandi 1 (at age 1), whereas the information on the cognitive well-being of the children was
Station Road, Deonar, collected in Wave 3 (at age 8). Child cognitive well-being was measured using scores
Mumbai– 400088, India;
ashu100789@gmail.com obtained by the children on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), math, Early
Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA), and memory tests. The results of the bivariate
CITATION
Upadhyay AK, Srivastava S and analysis show that the mean PPVT, math, EGRA, and memory scores obtained by
Paul C (2017). Consequences children from the migrated households were lower than those obtained by children
of forced migration during
early childhood on cognitive from the non-migrated households. Results of the multivariate linear regression
well-being in later childhood
in Andhra Pradesh, India. models also show that children from the migrated households were statistically less
International Journal of likely to achieve higher scores on math (coefficient: -2.008, 95% C.I.-3.108, -0.908),
Population Studies, 3(2): 16-28.
doi: 10.18063/ijps.v3.i2.348 EGRA (coefficient: -0.746, 95% C.I.-1.366, -0.126), and memory (coefficient: -0.503,
95% C.I. -0.834, -0.173) as compared to children from the non-migrated households.
Copyright: © 2017 Upadhyay Our findings also indicate that the effect of forced migration on child cognitive well-
AK et al. This is an Open
Access article distributed under being was not mitigated by social support. Findings of this study conclude that forced
the terms of the Creative migration during infancy has a significant effect on child cognitive well-being at later
Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 4.0 age. Therefore, interventions should be made, paying attention to the most vulnerable
International License children who were displaced during critical development ages.
(http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting
all noncommercial use, Keywords: forced migration; cognitive well-being; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test
distribution, and reproduction (PPVT); Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA); memory scores; social support;
in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited. India

16 International Journal of Population Studies | 2017, Volume 3, Issue 2