Children of migrants in China in the twenty-first century: trends,living arrangements,age-gender structure,and geography

ABSTRACT

Children – including those of migrants – are China’s future. Children of migrants now make up close to 40% of all children in China. This paper analyzes the recent trends from 2000 to 2016 and the major aspects of the children of migrants by distilling data from multiple large national surveys and assessing the very small rural left-behind children (LBC) population figures published by the Ministry of Civil Affairs in 2016. The paper also develops a method to estimate the LBC population generated by migrants in each provincial destination between 2010 and 2015, linking up different but related populations (adult migrants, migrant children, and LBC) in the origins and destinations. This broader “origin-destination” framework allows us to pinpoint clearly a major driver of LBC and hence to identify provinces needing the most attention in national and provincial efforts to alleviate the problem of LBC.

Abbreviations: MC: Migrant Children; LBC: Left-Behind Children; MPR: Migration Participation Rate: LBCG: Left-Behind Children Generated     

国际移民体系中的中国大陆移民--也谈新移民问题

改革开放以来,中国大陆出现的新移民问题引起了广泛关注,但已有的研究并不能使人们清晰地认识和了解这一问题.本文试图将这一问题置于国际移民的背景下加以探讨,就新移民的概念界定、出现这一现象的主要背景、新移民的人数和类型等问题进行分析.从而说明,中国大陆的新移民现象,是20世纪移民时代国际移民大潮中的一个极小的部分,对此应有客观公正的认识.     

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.     

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.     

Thai migrants in Singapore: state,intimacy and desire

In this article, I analyse Thai migration to Singapore, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork (2004–06) to discuss the experiences of male construction workers and female sex workers in negotiating heterosexuality during their temporary residence. I argue that these Thai migrants engage in transient heterosexual encounters as one of many calculated, strategic ways of negotiating their intimate identity and subjectivity in the survival circuits of this global city. Their transient sexual acts are intimate products of negotiated moves, which form a major part of their semi-anonymous, temporary life in a foreign land. The sexual practices of Thai migrant workers in Singapore, I argue, are best understood by taking the following factors into account: the host government's regulation and control of its migrant population; the foreign workers' economic and social situations of mobility as inscribed in their highly dynamic traveling biographies; and their rationalized willingness and desire to embrace transient sexual intimacies as part of their employment and/or struggling lives in the global city's survival circuits.     

新空间 新网络 新角色——博客对海外新移民与中国互动的影响

以新兴的网络传播手段——博客作为切入点,分析了海外华人新移民博客社区的种类和组织形态;阐述了海外华人新移民通过博客与中国社会互动的意义、方式及影响。通过博客这一新的互动工具和平台,海外新移民可更加直接而生动地了解中国变化,了解中国人的最新思维、心态和社会变迁;拓宽自身更大的社会交往空间、话语渠道、传播途径和社会影响;与中国原住地的原有关系保持思想上的无边界的联系,甚至参与中国的改变进程。     

Global Governmentality and graduated sovereignty: National belonging among poor migrants in ecuador

Questions about the transformation of governance and national identity are being re‐examined in the context of contemporary economic globalisation. Scholars are debating the ways in which globalisation is reworking national identities through the shifting of economic governance away from ‘... the territorially defined boundaries of the nation‐state ... [and into] “unbundled” space for which there is not yet a name’ (Gupta, 1998: 321). Much of the work that has examined these questions of national identity and belonging under globalisation have emphasised questions of mobility, memory and identity in diasporic communities. In this paper, by contrast, I work with economic migrants within Ecuador to emphasise how contemporary globalisation processes reach inside national territories and work to reconstitute and reinvigorate pre‐existing social hierarchies and spatial identities. I develop these arguments in the context of Ecuador's economic crisis of the last two decades, drawing on in‐depth interviews with migrants to Quito.     

Parental migration and the educational enrolment of left-behind children: evidence from rural Ponorogo,Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the effects of parental migration on children’s educational enrolment following the recent reforms in Indonesian educational policy. We find that, in general, parental migration has a positive impact on school enrolment, although this varies by the child’s age and the gender of the migrant parent. Parental migration has an adverse impact on the school enrolment of younger children who are eligible for free education, but a positive impact on older children who are no longer able to access state educational support. The gender of the migrant parent matters, as paternal migration appears to have a more positive impact on children’s educational enrolment than maternal migration. Maternal migration is associated with a reduction of younger children’s likelihood of a being in school, while paternal migration makes no difference to their school enrolment. For older children, maternal migration has a lower positive impact compared to paternal migration. Our qualitative interviews also show mixed findings: some children appreciate their migrant mothers’ migration efforts and are motivated to persevere in continuing education, while others are weighed down by their migrant mothers’ sacrifice and develop a sense of obligation to reduce their financial burdens by leaving education early to enter paid employment.     

跨国主义的移民研究——欧美学者的观点和贡献

在已有研究的基础上,从跨国移民的政治选择、跨国移民的经济贡献、跨国移民的文化再造、跨国移民的活动领域、回归移民的再适应、跨国主义移民研究等多方面介绍和评述了欧美学界跨国主义移民研究的主要观点、基本内容和特征以及学术贡献,并对跨国移民研究中需要进一步探讨的问题进行了梳理.     

Chinese migrants,morality and film ethics in Italian cinema

During 2004–2011, Italian cinema intervened in the ongoing public debates about Chinese immigration to Italy with 15 notable films, which provided a window into the moral and ethical practices of the filmmakers and those of the fictional characters, or interviewees, in their films. This migratory phenomenon, in turn, offered filmmakers a variety of stimuli and perspectives from which to contemplate the moral stakes in screening Chinese migrants in Italy in films. Italian-Chinese films, insofar as they address the self–other relationship, lend themselves to an ethical analysis. I show that Italian documentary films genuinely feature the lives of Chinese migrants through restrained and socially conscious creative means. In contrast, relevant feature films often center on the plight of marginalized native Italian characters, adopting artistic license appropriate to their market-oriented production ethos.     

Environment and Cultural Heritage in China: Introduction

The transformation of the natural and built environment over the past three decades has left China with a legacy of environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity. The loss of cultural heritage, including cultural forms associated with the natural ecology, has been just as dramatic. The three studies in this special focus section of Asian Studies Review explore significant issues in environmental conservation, cultural heritage, and grassroots activism in urban and rural China, with an emphasis on the relationship between the natural environment, the transmission of traditional cultural forms, and localised forms of agency or activism. As discussed here, while China's discourse on these issues is strongly influenced by global norms, different regions of China are developing their own individual responses to environmental conservation, the protection of biodiversity, and the ongoing transmission of endangered cultural forms.     

德国中国移民的历史演变及类别构成

利用统计方法,分析了中国人移民德国的四个历史时期及其发展;阐述了中国成为德国的前十大外国人输入国的原因和在德中国人的组成类别。得出结论,中国人在德国的移民发展总体呈现增长的态势,学生和青少年是增长幅度最大的群体;中国人移民德国的迁徙明显受到中德两国政治、经济、文化等政策和相互交流往来的影响。     

"九一八"事变后东北地区华北移民动态的考察

“九一八”事变后,东北变成了日本的殖民地。日伪对我华北移民出关采取了限制的措施,这使出关移民大减。更为主要的是,它使20年代以来的移民运动被纳入了日本侵略的战争轨道,不能自由发展,因而这一时期的移民运动呈现出与事变前不同的特点。“九一八”事变后华北与东北间人口流动的实质是日本帝国主义对华北劳动力的强制性掠夺。     

Discrimination Against Floating Migrants in China:Take Rural-to-Urban Migrants in Beijing As An Example

This essay firstly examines the destiny of rural-to-urban migrants in Beijing, the capital of China. Relying on data collected from representative survey, the essay then provides the demographic profil...     

1931—1937年东北关内移民的特点及性质

1931—1937年,关内向东北移民具有以下基本特点移民的数量少、波动大,移民运动一度中断;移民的流向和地域分布,以南满的城市和工业区为主;移民的居住年限下降,流动性增强。从移民的性别、年龄、职业及迁移过程等方面可以看出,1931年后关内与东北间人口的迁移与流动发生了根本变化,即进入东北地区的关内人口,不再是自由流入谋生,而是被作为“苦力”招骗而来,带有明显的强制性。     

美国华人社会的阶级研究——以个人访谈为主的分析

针对美国华人研究领域里阶级或阶级关系这个概念几乎被忽略的现象,阐述了阶级观念在华人社会中的发展及表现形式;分析了移民社会中美国华人的阶级和阶级观念的特点、阶级在华人社会中的重要性与华人社会本身的多元化的关系以及华人社会中非法移民的生存状态和阶级地位。得出结论,第二次世界大战以后,随着美国华裔社会的逐步多元化,华人的阶级观念不仅没有减弱,反而有增强的趋势,他们对于阶级的认识也表现得更为复杂化。除财富之外,美国华人对于阶级的认同还取决于家庭出身、移民背景、同化程度以及法律身份等多种因素。     

从复数“中国”到单数“中国”——试论统一多民族中国及其疆域的形成

由于中国古代少数民族及其政权多自称“中国”,以及当时一些政权虽没有自称“中国”,但为后来的“中国”所继承,并仍被称为“中国”等原因,致使中国古代自秦统一以后仍然存在复数“中国”的现象。经过秦汉、魏晋南北朝、隋唐、辽宋夏金的发展,到了元朝统一全国,复数“中国”开始过渡为单数“中国”,明朝时期稍有反复,到了清朝统一全国,作为单数概念的“中国”最终确定下来,统一的多民族的“中国”及其疆域最终形成和确立下来。     

The Global Economic Crisis and Unemployment in China

Two noted academic specialists on labor economics and population statistics of China examine the impacts of the global economic crisis of 2008-2009 on the job security of urban workers, and the ensuing repercussions for the Chinese society and economy. More specifically, they probe and determine the magnitude of urban unemployment in China in 2008 and 2009 as it appears to be reported in different segments of the country's immense labor market. A particular focus of the paper is on differences in unemployment among two groups of workers (those with urban hukou vis-à-vis rural migrant workers) with significantly different sets of rights and privileges, as well as levels of job security. The authors also provide an estimate of the urban unemployment rate in 2009 that differs from the official rate. They argue that measures toward further integration of rural and urban labor markets and reducing natural unemployment are ultimately more beneficial than short-term interventions to adjust cyclical joblessness stemming from the global economic crisis and recession.     

高屋建瓴宏观会通--程民生《中国北方经济史》评介

《中国北方经济史》以经济重心的转移为主线,探讨了先秦、秦汉至明清时期中国北方经济的兴衰及经济重心的演变过程。从总体上来说,《中国北方经济史》既是一部运用历史区域经济地理方法对北方经济进行考察的力作,更是经济重心南移问题研究的集大成之作。     

回顾与展望: 中国大陆地区的民国史研究

近30年来,中华民国史(1912-1949)的学术研究在大陆地区从无到有,有了巨大的发展,已经成为一个成果丰硕、相对完整的学科。大陆民国史研究的主导史观大致经过了从革命史观到民族主义史观、现代化史观的历程。进入21世纪后,民国史研究更呈现多元化的趋势,表现为新研究领域的开拓与新史料的运用。民国史研究若要进一步发展,需要对研究对象与范围进行重新界定,构建新的解释体系与加强国际学术界的合作与交流。