In the past two decades China has instituted economic and social reforms that have
resulted in impressive strides in virtually every area of human endeavor. Yet despite these
achievements, China's rural children continue to lag far behind their urban counterparts in
physical, cognitive, and social development.
Since two-thirds of the country's children reside in the countryside, improving child
development services in rural areas is one of China's most pressing concerns. Educational
research has shown that intervention in the preschool years, particularly before age five, has the
greatest impact on an individual's future(and for the health of society as a whole.
This study evaluates the current situation of children in rural and urban China, identifies
problems related to child development, presents evidence of the effect of investment in
interventions targeted to the early years, assesses the socioeconomic development of such
investment, and outlines a program of interventions in both health and education to improve the
outcome for children in rural China.