The Children Of China S Great Migration

Rachel Murphy explores Chinese children's experience of having migrant parents and the impact this has on family relationships in China.

China's rise over the past several decades has lifted more than half of its population out of poverty and reshaped the global economy. What has caused this dramatic transformation? In China's Great Migration: How the Poor Built a Prosperous Nation, author Bradley Gardner looks at one of the most important but least discussed forces pushing China's economic development: the migration of more than 260 million people from their birthplaces to China's most economically vibrant cities. By combining an analysis of China's political economy with current scholarship on the role of migration in economic development, China's Great Migration shows how the largest economic migration in the history of the world has led to a bottom-up transformation of China. Gardner draws from his experience as a researcher and journalist working in China to investigate why people chose to migrate and the social and political consequences of their decisions. In the aftermath of China's Cultural Revolution, the collapse of totalitarian government control allowed millions of people to skirt migration restrictions and move to China's growing cities, where they offered a massive pool of labor that propelled industrial development, foreign investment, and urbanization. Struggling to respond to the demands of these migrants, the Chinese government loosened its grip on the economy, strengthening property rights and allowing migrants to employ themselves and each other, spurring the Chinese economic miracle. More than simply a narrative of economic progress, China's Great Migration tells the human story of China's transformation, featuring interviews with the men and women whose way of life has been remade. In its pages, readers will learn about the rebirth of a country and millions of lives changed, hear what migration can tell us about the future of China, and discover what China's development can teach the rest of the world about the role of market liberalization and economic migration in fighting poverty and creating prosperity.

There are more than 225 million rural-to-urban migrant workers, and some 20 million migrant children in Chinese cities. Because of policies related to the household registration (hukou) system, migrant students are not allowed a public high school education in the cities, so their urban education stops abruptly at the end of middle school. This book investigates the post-middle school education and labor market decisions of migrant students in Beijing and Shanghai, and provides a glimpse into the future of a crucial link in China’s development. The stories of how these migrant students seek upward mobility and urban citizenship also reveal one of the most intricate structural inequalities in China today. Based on quantitative data collected from middle schools in Beijing and Shanghai, and ethnographic data drawing on in-depth interviews with migrant children, their parents, and teachers, this book offers a portrait of the migration and educational experiences and prospects of second generation migrant youth in China today. It explores the urban experience of migrant students, contrasting it with that of local city youngsters, examining the migrant students’ family backgrounds, family dynamics, neighborhood and school experience, and interaction with locals. It goes on to look at the migrant students’ education and career aspirations, the structural obstacles preventing their fulfilment, and how migrant families respond to institutional constraints on educational opportunity. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion of policy implications and offers proposals for resolving the dilemmas of migrant youth. This book will of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese studies, Asian education, migration and social development.

Migration has played a significant role throughout Chinese history. Over the past few decades, the movements of the Chinese people, representing as they do a huge proportion of the world population, have attracted increasing attention both domestically and globally. Chinese migration is often a particularly complex phenomenon. On one hand, its characteristics have been shaped in many ways by numerous social, political and economic changes throughout the world, while, on the other, it has profound influences on the host countries and on China itself. Detailed investigation of the changing profiles of Chinese migrants, the reasons behind their movements, the challenges they face, and the strategies they use to cope with these problems will have significant implications for future policy making and practice. Chinese Migration and Families-At-Risk contributes to a better understanding of the various facets of Chinese migration. Its chapters address different concerns related to Chinese migration in the modern world, including the patterns and influences of internal migration within China; the issues related to migration from mainland China to Hong Kong, a special administrative region in China; and the history, features, and impact of Chinese migration to Western countries. Grounded in recent and contemporary research and scholarly inquiry, Chinese Migration and Families-At-Risk provides a comprehensive and critical review of the essential issues related to Chinese migrant families, and is undoubtedly a vital book for all who want to have a deeper understanding of the trends and current situation of Chinese migration.

This ground breaking work is the result of research by Plan International China and the China Agricultural University on children who have been left behind in their rural villages when their parents migrate to cities in search of work.

By 2030, China's cities will be home to 1 billion people - one in every eight people on earth. What kind of lives will China's urban billion lead? And what will China's cities be like? Over the past thirty years, China's urban population expanded by 500 million people, and is on track to swell by a further 300 million by 2030. Hundreds of millions of these new urban residents are rural migrants, who lead second-class lives without access to urban benefits. Even those lucky citizens who live in modern tower blocks must put up with clogged roads, polluted skies and cityscapes of unremitting ugliness. The rapid expansion of urban China is astonishing, but new policies are urgently needed to create healthier cities. Combining on-the-ground reportage and up-to-date research, this pivotal book explains why China has failed to reap many of the economic and social benefits of urbanization, and suggests how these problems can be resolved. If its leaders get urbanization right, China will surpass the United States and cement its position as the world's largest economy. But if they get it wrong, China could spend the next twenty years languishing in middle-income torpor, its cities pockmarked by giant slums.

This book is a compelling account of China’s response to the increasing numbers of ‘foreigners’ in its midst, revealing a contradictory picture of welcoming civility, security anxiety and policy confusion. Over the last forty years, China’s position within the global migration order has been undergoing a remarkable shift. From being a nation most notable for the numbers of its emigrants, China has increasingly become a destination for immigrants from all points of the globe. What attracts international migrants to China and how are they received once they arrive? This timely volume explores this question in depth. Focusing on such diverse migrant communities as African traders in Guangzhou, Japanese call center workers in Dalian, migrant restaurateurs in Shanghai, marriage migrants on the Vietnamese borderlands, South Korean parents in Beijing, Europeans in Xiamen and Western professionals in Hong Kong, as well as the booming expansion of British and North American English language teachers across the nation, the accounts offered here reveal in intimate detail the motivations, experiences, and aspirations of the diversity of international migrants in China.

Around the time of WWI, large numbers of African Americans began leaving their homes in the rural South in search of employment in the industrial cities of the North. In 1940, Lawrence chronicled their journey of hope in a flowing narrative sequence of paintings."This stirring picture book brings together the sixty panels of Lawrence's epic narrative Migration series, which he created in 1940-1941. They tell of the journey of African-Americans who left their homes in the South around World War I and traveled in search of better lives in the northern industrial cities. Lawrence is a storyteller with words as well as pictures: his captions and introduction to this book are the best commentary on his work. A poem at the end by Walter Dean Myers also reveals [as do the paintings] the universal in the particulars." ––BL. Notable Children's Books of 1994 (ALA) 1993 Books for Youth Editors' Choices (BL) 1994 Teachers' Choices (IRA) Notable 1994 Childrens' Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC) 1994 Carter G. Woodson Outstanding Merit Book (NCSS) 1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)