Rural-to-urban migration and adolescent delinquent behaviors: evidence from Hunan and Guangdong in China

ABSTRACT

Analyzing data of a merged sample of two Chinese student surveys conducted in two rural counties of Hunan province and in the capital city of Guangdong province, this paper examines the impact of parental migration on rural children’s involvement in delinquent behaviors. We compare delinquency of non-migrant and left-behind children in the countryside, rural-to-urban migrant children, and urban local children. Both rural children left behind by one migrant parent and those left behind by both migrant parents are similar to rural children without parental migration in terms of delinquent involvement. The situation of rural-to-urban migrant children is noticeably worse, as they are more likely to engage in delinquent behaviors than rural children without parental migration. Nevertheless, rural-to-urban migrant children are not more prone to delinquency compared to their urban local peers. We also found an acculturation impact in the study because the odds of engaging in delinquent behaviors first increases and then decreases for rural-to-urban migrant children when they stay longer and learn some local language in the hosting city.     

The impacts of parental migration on children’s subjective well-being in rural china: a double-edged sword

ABSTRACT

The emerging problem of left-behind children has attracted mounting academic and policy attention. Prior studies primarily cast light on left-behind children’s education, health, and behavior, while their subjective well-being is much less understood yet. Based on a nationally representative sample of rural children aged 10–15 in 2014, we examine the impacts of different types of parental migration on children’s subjective well-being and how these affects vary between boys and girls. The results show that parental migration is a double-edged sword: children from both-parent migrant families report compromised life satisfaction and relationship quality compared with those in integral families, and mother-only migration significantly lowers children’s subjective health. On the flip side, father-only migration enhances children’s aspiration for attaining college, an encouraging effect that is even stronger than that of parental education and family income. These effects are heterogeneous by children’s gender: boys seem to be more susceptible to the disruptive effects of both-parent migration; mother-only migration effectively promotes girls’ educational aspiration while father-only migration promotes boys’. This study portrays a comprehensive image of left-behind children. Relaxation of hukou restriction, equal access to education, and revitalization of rural economies are imperative to improve the well-being of left-behind children.

Abbreviations: LBC: Left-behing children; SWB: subjective well-being     

Family education support to rural migrant children in China: evidence from Shenzhen

Rural migrant children have become a fast-growing population in China as a consequence of the large-scale population flow from rural to urban areas. Besides the dual-structure hukou system, which restrains rural migrants from upward mobility, family capital also plays an important role in providing family educational support to rural migrant children. Using the data from P District and N District of Shenzhen in 2013, this paper explores the present status of three dimensions of family capital and five aspects of family educational support to Chinese rural migrant children, as well as the correlation between family capital and family educational support from perspectives of migration status (hukou), life course (children’s age), and school type. Constrained by inadequate family capital in multiple dimensions manifested by less education, lower income, and limited social networks, etc., parents of rural migrant children provide less family educational support in nearly every aspect compared with parents of urban local children. Among rural migrant children, those in private migrant schools receive the least support from their parents.     

Leaving children behind: a win-win household strategy or a path to pauperization?

ABSTRACT

There has been a scholarly debate on the impact of cityward labor migration on the children left behind in rural China. The present article explains why the attempt by some scholars to normalize the separation of parent and child as a “win-win” household strategy is problematic. Based on scholarly insights into China’s rural–urban dual system, this article clarifies that the emergence of left-behind children in rural China is one of the direct consequences of the dual system imposed upon migrant parents instead of a “voluntary” choice by them. This article contends that even though many rural households benefit from incomes generated through parental migration for the time being, constrained by the dual system, the cost of their children’s lack of secure parent–child bonding, low-quality education, kinship care, and rampant delinquency will eventually outstrip that economic gain in the long run. In particular, in an era that requires ever-updating knowledge and skills, poorly educated left-behind children are likely trapped in the lowest rung of society’s ladder and, therefore, are prone to continue on the path to pauperization.     

Migrant mothers,left-behind fathers: the negotiation of gender subjectivities in Indonesia and the Philippines

The distinct feminization of labour migration in Southeast Asia – particularly in the migration of breadwinning mothers as domestic and care workers in gender-segmented global labour markets – has altered care arrangements, gender roles and practices, as well as family relationships within the household significantly. Such changes were experienced by both the migrating women and other left-behind members of the family, particularly ‘substitute’ carers such as left-behind husbands. During the women’s absence from the home, householding strategies have to be reformulated when migrant women-as-mothers rewrite their roles (but often not their identities) through labour migration as productive workers who contribute to the well-being of their children via financial remittances and ‘long-distance mothering’, while left-behind fathers and/or other family members step up to assume some of the tasks vacated by the mother. Using both quantitative and qualitative interview material with returned migrants and left-behind household members in source communities in Indonesia and the Philippines experiencing considerable pressures from labour migration, this article explores how carework is redistributed in the migrant mother’s absence, and the ensuing implications on the gender roles of remaining family members, specifically left-behind fathers. It further examines how affected members of the household negotiate and respond to any changing gender ideologies brought about by the mother’s migration over time.     

Migration and left-behind parents and children of migrants in Cambodia: a look at household composition and the economic situation

ABSTRACT

This paper examines composition of households formed after the outmigration of a household member in rural Cambodian and correlates household types with indicators of economic condition. The paper focuses on households containing left-behind parents and the children of migrants. Excess mortality in the 1970s due to war suggests the association between migration and economic condition may be gendered. This could be exacerbated when migration leads to a skip-generation household containing a left-behind parent and a child of migrant without an own parent of the child present. Data come from the Cambodian Rural-Urban Migration Project (CRUMP), a project designed to study migration in rural Cambodia. Most households formed after a migration contain a left-behind parent of migrant. While about 22 per cent of these households contain a left-behind child of migrant, the per cent is over 60 per cent when the migrant is themselves a parent. The economic situation tends to be worst for left behind solo mothers (mothers of migrants who do not live with a spouse) and best for left-behind coupled parents of migrants. There is evidence that the combination of left-behind solo mothers living with children of migrants in a skip-generation situation is the most disadvantaged.     

LIVING WITH MIGRATION

In the Philippines, large-scale overseas migration has raised concerns about left-behind children, who are perceived to be most affected by the absence of fathers, mothers or both. Without their ‘real’ parents (especially mothers) to rear and guide them, left-behind children are perceived to bear the brunt of the social costs of migration. Based on data collected from a 2003 nationwide study, this article examines how left-behind children (specifically those aged 10–12 years old and adolescents) cope without their migrant parents. Three questions are explored: (1) how children are raised in the absence of one or both migrant parents; (2) how children (re)configure family, family life and family practices; and (3) what roles children have, if any, in how the family unit copes with the migration of one or both parents. Although migration creates emotional displacement for migrants and their children, it also opens up possibilities for children's agency and independence.     

The Impact of Childhood Migration on Educational Attainment: Evidence from rural–urban migrants in Indonesia

This paper estimates the effect of migrating permanently as a child from a rural area to an urban area; focusing on long-term educational attainment in Indonesia. We conduct a household survey specifically tailored to collect data on urban–rural migrants in four major migrant destination cities in Indonesia, and merge the data with a nationally representative survey to create a dataset that contains migrants in urban areas and non-migrants in rural areas who were born in the same rural districts. We find that individuals who migrated to the city as children attained three more years of education, compared to observably similar individuals who remained in rural areas. We find no gender differences in the benefit of childhood migration. Finally, age at migration and the size of network in the city do not significantly affect the educational attainment of childhood migrants.     

Care-less spaces and identity construction: transition to secondary school for disabled children

There is a growing body of literature which marks out a feminist ethics of care and it is within this framework we understand transitions from primary to secondary school education can be challenging and care-less, especially for disabled children. By exploring the narratives of parents and professionals, we investigate transitions and self-identity, as a meaningful transition depends on the care-full spaces pupils inhabit. These education narratives are all in the context of privileging academic attainment and a culture of testing and examinations. Parents and professionals, as well as children are also surveyed. Until there are care-full education processes, marginalisation will remain, impacting on disabled children’s transition to secondary school and healthy identity construction. Moreover, if educational challenges are not addressed, their life chances are increasingly limited. Interdependent caring work enables engagement in a meaningful education and positive identity formation. In school and at home, care-full spaces are key in this process.     

‘Like it,don’t like it,you have to like it’: children’s emotional responses to the absence of transnational migrant parents in Lombok,Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This article explores the experiences and emotions of children in rural East Lombok, Indonesia, who stay behind with relatives or neighbours while their parents leave the country for work. The article contributes to recent scholarship of children’s experiences of transnational migration in Southeast Asia by drawing out the complex emotions of children who stay behind. Based on research conducted in four ‘sending’ villages, the article describes children’s lived experiences of their parent’s transnational migration, and their intense feelings that whether they ‘like it or don’t like it’, they have no choice but to acquiesce to their parents’ long, often indeterminate absences. The research suggests that stay-behind children are entangled in community anxieties pervading the emotional economy of transnational migration, including the embodied emotion of shame (malu) which shapes children’s responses to parental absence. By focusing on children’s own views and experiences, we contribute to growing debates about the implications of migration for children’s rights and well-being in Southeast Asia.     

Delayed,deferred and dropped out: geographies of Filipino-Canadian high school students

Models representing the assimilation of post-Second World War immigrants to North America use the academic achievement of children of first-generation immigrants as a benchmark of social mobility. Filipino youths in Canada fall short of this benchmark – they neither meet nor exceed their parents’ academic achievements. While concern with outcomes is a useful starting point, I suggest that there is a need to interrogate how and where students are produced as different. To do this, I attend to the geographies in the narratives of youths gathered from Filipino high school students in Vancouver (unceded Coast Salish Territories). I examine how they negotiate the spaces of transnational migration, their lives as students and spaces where their educational trajectories are deferred and delayed. I argue that the geographies of transnational migration and family should be held together with spaces of the school and education when considering academic outcomes.     

Rural–Urban Migration and Gender Disparities in Child Healthcare in China and India

This article assesses the impact of rural–urban migration on gender disparities in children's access to healthcare in China and India. Much research has shown widespread discrimination against girl children in both countries, including in health investments, contributing to the well‐known problem of Asia's ‘missing’ women. Much less clear is the impact of the massive rural–urban migration now occurring in China and India on discrimination against daughters. Migration is usually thought to have a positive effect on child health, because of improved access to healthcare facilities, but this is not necessarily equally beneficial for both sons and daughters. Based on fourteen months of fieldwork with rural migrant families in Shenzhen (China) and Mumbai (India), this article argues that where migration improves access to healthcare, it may increase rather than decrease the gender gap in treatment of child illness in the short term, as resources are concentrated on the treatment of sons. Furthermore, it is not the case that rural–urban migration necessarily leads to better access to healthcare even for sons: some forms of migration may actually have an overall negative effect on child health outcomes. For these two reasons, development strategies focusing on large‐scale rural–urban migration should not be seen as a short‐term solution to problems of gender inequity in child health.     

Towards transnational gender identity. A case study of Polish children growing up in Norway

This article focuses on migration experiences of Polish children living in one of the most gender-equal countries in the world – in Norway. Empirically, the article is based on 30 semi-structured interviews with children aged 6–13 who were born in Poland and migrated with their parents to Norway after Poland’s accession to the European Union. Observation of their rooms during the interview also contributed to the study. We discuss ways in which gender roles, practices and identities are shaped by mobility in the Polish-Norwegian context and how ideas about girls/women and boys/men are affected by the migration experience. The article seeks to explore children’s experiences in the two highly contrasting and differentiated contexts: one where the children were socialized and the other where they then moved, the former being highly traditional in terms of gender, the latter emphasizing gender equality. We argue that the Polish home is the most important site for the formation of the traditional gender identity, while the Norwegian school and peer group are the most important sites for the formation of the modern gender identity. This situation causes tension and ambivalence with regard to children’s gender identities across a number of different spaces and spheres of their lives.     

为了平等而不平等——从学校向工农开门看新中国的教育平等努力(1949—1965)

中国共产党自成立起就把争取工农群众受教育权利和受教育机会作为己任。新中国人民民主专政政权的建立,使广大人民获得了平等的受教育权,但是长期以来工农教育劣势却不是自然而然就能改变的。学校向工农开门就是中国共产党为增加工农受教育机会、实现真正的教育平等而做出的一种努力。在实践中,虽然采取了各种优先照顾工农青年、工农子女入学的措施,但是工农入学机会尤其是高等学校入学机会却一直不能与其他群体相比肩。于是,1958年以后学校向工农开门力度进一步加大,并且随着阶级路线的贯彻,一些"剥削阶级"子女接受高等教育机会受到限制。这就使新中国教育平等的价值追求呈现"为了平等而不平等"的特点。     

Parental smoking and children's anxieties: an appropriate strategy for health education?

While the prevalence of smoking has declined in the UK in recent years, class differentials in smoking behaviour have become more marked and smoking is increasingly recognised as a causal factor in inequalities in health. Health education initiatives to support both smoking cessation and to teach children about the health risks of smoking remain key initiatives in reducing health inequalities. However, teaching children about the risks of smoking and the impact of parental smoking on their health is not straightforward for children from backgrounds who are more likely to encounter smoking at home and in their local communities. These children have to reconcile the key messages taught at school and reinforced in smoking cessation campaigns with the knowledge that their parents and other family members smoke. In this article we consider how children from smoking homes make sense of these education and health campaigns as observed by their parents, and the impact that this has on both parental smoking and relationships within the home. The article thus seeks to challenge assumptions about the delivery of health education and the need to acknowledge family diversity.     

Parental Migration,Intergenerational Obligations and the Paradox for Left-Behind Boys in Rural China

Drawing on in-depth interviews with caregivers of left-behind children (LBC) in rural China, this article seeks to explore their understanding of migration motives and the social process of taking on care-giving roles for LBC. The authors argue that there are underlying socio-cultural explanations pertaining to economic motives for migration; such as, making contributions to social events (weddings and funerals) in village life, and fulfilling social obligations for left-behind sons’ futures. Parents migrate to save for sons’, but not daughters’, adult lives. Grandparents, particularly on the paternal side, are expected to fulfil social obligations to care for left-behind grandchildren, even without immediate financial returns. These suggest that left-behind boys, and in particular boys cared for by paternal grandparents, may be at greater risk than other LBC, as they may receive even fewer resources in the form of remittances from migrant parents in their early childhood.     

Sukli: uneven exchanges of care work of children left behind in Filipino transnational families

ABSTRACT

This article explores the complicated affective realities of children in the Philippines who engage in the labour of caring from the place of being ‘left behind’. I explore how children demonstrate care for their migrant mothers through various schooling tasks, undergirded by emotional dissonance, and often not through an idealized notion of love or tenderness. These acts demonstrate children allocate care work in transnational families in spite of complex emotional underpinnings I argue that the emotionality in those acts may be anger or frustration but children left behind are making sense of their labour through a culturally localized concept called sukli that connotes uneven exchange in care work to maintain the operations of a transnational family. The paper adds to our understanding of children’s affective experiences of migration within an Asian context.     

Is gender inequality a barrier to realizing fertility intentions? Fertility aspirations and realizations in South Korea

Research highlights the emergence of national low fertility regimes and the importance of understanding how institutional gender inequity supports low fertility. In South Korea, where gender inequality is high and a national low fertility regime exists, many women express a desire for two children but bear one child. Does gender equity, particularly within the household, influence the realization of fertility desires within the context of institutional inequality? Using the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women &; Families, in this paper, I test the effect of gender equity within the family on second births. Evaluating a subsample of married women with one child who desire a second child, I find that women’s gender role attitudes, husbands’ housework and women’s responsibility for children’s education influence the likelihood of realizing a second birth. Results highlight the importance of men’s household contributions and women’s educational responsibilities on the realization of fertility intentions within low fertility regimes.     

Migrant mothers and the geographies of belonging

Much academic research on migrant mothers focuses on mothers who are separated from their children, often through their integration into global care chains, or on mothers within the context of family migration. This paper argues that co-resident migrant mothers' experiences provide an important window on the complexities of the migration experience. Using a specific case study of Ireland, and drawing from a broader longitudinal research project that focuses on recent migrants, the paper explores migrant mothers' understandings and experiences of belonging and not-belonging. We argue that structural obstacles and cultural understanding of care actively conspire to undermine migrant mothers' potential to develop place-belongingness. Interviewees' discussions of their status as full-time mothers were often framed through images of ideal motherhood, but equally highlighted how the absence of affordable childcare and family members isolates them and prevents them from creating a sense of belonging outside of the process of mothering and the home.     

Parental Grief and Mourning in the Ancient Andes

Parental grief is an intense emotion shaped and mediated by cultural attitudes toward death, the strength of parent-child attachment, the age of the deceased child, and the role of children in society. Despite some assertions that high infant mortality or economic hardship may lessen parental grief, cross-cultural studies show that child death often causes emotional distress to parents, in particular mothers. Funerary treatments of children, especially infants, are often simplified, contradicting more immediate and immaterial expressions of parental grief that cannot be studied archaeologically. In this study, I examine the funerary treatment of children in ancient Andean Tiwanaku society (A.D. 500–1100). I assess the use of ritual practices and objects associated with children’s burials as indicative of children’s social identities and parental mourning. The nature of grave assemblages in regard to different ages of the children suggests that parental attitudes toward their children changed over the course of childhood. The choice of offerings seems to reflect parental attachment to and recognition of the child’s life. Modifications of ceramic vessels point to the intimate mourning gestures of grieving mothers who sought to provide their deceased children with the necessary offerings to assume their place among the community of venerated ancestors. This study draws on ethnographic, psychological, and ethnohistoric sources of parent-child bonds in the Andes and beyond to investigate children’s burials not merely as reflective of childhood and children’s role in society but as the material record of parental attachment and emotion in the past.