They are also Parents They Are Also Parents - A Study on Migrant Workers | Page 22

CCR CSR | A Study on Migrant Workers with Left-behind Children in China | August 2013
3. Situation analysis and challenges for migrant
workers with children
CCR CSR | A Study on Migrant Workers with Left-behind Children in China | August 2013
Figure 7: Who should take care of the children? (multiple choice)
80%
70%
3.1 The workers’ understanding of parenthood
60%
50%
There is a major discrepancy between migrant workers’
40%
understanding of their responsibilities as parents and their actual
ability to fulfill them
30%
The majority of migrant worker parents (92%) said they believe raising
20%
children is the responsibility of both parents. Most of the younger migrants
10%
(70%) also stated that they would want to look after their children
themselves. However, as illustrated in the table below (Figure 7) it is the
grandparents and other relatives that make for majority of migrant children’s
actual caregivers. Only a quarter of parents interviewed throughout this
research said that at least one of them was able to look after their child, and
majority faced significant difficulties with arranging for appropriate guardian
at home.
0%
Both
parents
Friend Boarding
school Child looks after
him/herself
3% 0% 2% 2%
35% 12% 0% 0% 1%
0% 72% 2% 0% 4% 4%
20% 7% 43% 0% 0% 0%
Father Mother Pearl River Delta Parents of
left-behind children 4% 10% 0% 79%
Pearl River Delta Parents of
migrant children 25% 14% 11% Chongqing Parents of left-
behind children 7% 6% Chongqing Parents of
migrant children 12% 10%
Grandparents
Other
relatives
All of the migrant workers, regardless of their background, felt that their key all, and they never knew what he was thinking. They wondered whether he
responsibility as parents involved the child’s sound psychological development might have some kind of psychological problem.
and good social skills (79%). This came ahead of education (74%), health
and other basic needs, most likely reflecting the workers acute concern about Xiaohang said that he did not want to go and live with his father in Guangzhou
the environment in which their children were growing up. Throughout the because he didn’t have any friends there and he couldn’t speak Cantonese.
interviews, both migrant workers, as well as company and factory managers, But at the same time, he also said that his greatest wish was to live with his
expressed their worry about left-behind children feeling inferior and alienated dad. The boy was struggling with mixed feelings and emotions.
from their families (Figure 8).
Lack of understanding about children’s needs at various stages of
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Twelve-year-old Xiaohang speaks in such a quiet voice, that at first the development limits communication between migrant workers and
interviewer had to play a game with him to encourage him to speak up. When their children
he was eight years old, his mother died of cancer. His father left him in the When asked about communication with their children, migrant workers said
care of his paternal aunt and went to Guangzhou to sell flowers. The room they were concerned about a range of issues, including“children’s personality
that Xiaohang and his aunt lived in was pitch-black and the boy’s aunt and and psychological well-being,” their “academic performance,” their “parent-
another relative told the interviewer that Xiaohang barely talked to them at child relationship,” and overall happiness. However, of the 20 left-behind
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