Book contents
- The Children of China’s Great Migration
- The Children of China’s Great Migration
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Maps
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Understanding the Lives of Left-Behind Children in Rural China
- 2 Migration, Education and Family Striving in Four Counties of Anhui and Jiangxi
- 3 Sacrifice and Study
- 4 Boys’ and Girls’ Experiences of Distribution in Striving Families
- 5 Children in ‘Mother At-Home, Father Out’ Families
- 6 Children of Lone-Migrant Mothers and At-Home Fathers
- 7 Children in Skipped Generation Families
- 8 Left-Behind Children in Striving Teams
- Appendix: Field Research on Left-Behind Children in China
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Migration, Education and Family Striving in Four Counties of Anhui and Jiangxi
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2020
- The Children of China’s Great Migration
- The Children of China’s Great Migration
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Maps
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Understanding the Lives of Left-Behind Children in Rural China
- 2 Migration, Education and Family Striving in Four Counties of Anhui and Jiangxi
- 3 Sacrifice and Study
- 4 Boys’ and Girls’ Experiences of Distribution in Striving Families
- 5 Children in ‘Mother At-Home, Father Out’ Families
- 6 Children of Lone-Migrant Mothers and At-Home Fathers
- 7 Children in Skipped Generation Families
- 8 Left-Behind Children in Striving Teams
- Appendix: Field Research on Left-Behind Children in China
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Located in Anhui and Jiangxi provinces, the fieldwork counties of Eastern County, Western County, Tranquil County and Jade County shared many characteristics. These included: a devalued ‘rural’ status; a prevalence of low-quality and low-paying local off-farm jobs; histories of economic and educational deprivation manifest in the grandparents’ and parents’ emplaced biographies; and a patriarchal family culture. In the 2010s these counties also had high rates of labour migration with over half of rural children affected by the migration of at least one parent. At the same time, the four fieldwork sites had distinctive features that impacted on the children’s lives. Specifically, the counties each had their own linkages to certain ‘outside’ places and economic sectors that intersected with other aspects of local geographic context such as physical location, the local school regime characteristics – including whether there were school boarding facilities, school lunches and private schools – and customary gender relations and divisions of labour. These factors affected the immediate setting within which families deliberated who should and could migrate and who should and could deliver childcare, which in turn influenced the children’s experiences of daily care and routines in and around school, and their expectations of parental support for their education.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Children of China's Great Migration , pp. 39 - 65Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020