They are also Parents They Are Also Parents - A Study on Migrant Workers | Page 30

CCR CSR | A Study on Migrant Workers with Left-behind Children in China | August 2013
CCR CSR | A Study on Migrant Workers with Left-behind Children in China | August 2013
(hukou) tended to hope that their children would become civil servants or tended to be closer to home, returned home more often, and generally spent
find positions in business management. Those with agricultural hukou, on more time with their children. In addition, primary and middle schools in
the other hand, largely hoped that their children would find employment in Chongqing are open to the children of migrant workers, and do not require
professional and technical fields. Overall, majority of parents (over 50%) did additional fees, often charged to children without local household registration.
indicate that they would support their children’s personal choices.
3.2 Challenges of raising children as a migrant worker
The key factors leading to family separation
The three main reasons for migrant workers being unable to keep their
children with them in the city are:
• the lack of time to look after children (68%)
• a struggle to cover the basic living costs (53%)
• inability to secure an equal level of education and other social services (30%)
Figure 14: Reasons that parents leave their children behind (multiple choice)
Figure 15: Difficulties faced by parents of migrant children (multiple choice)
Difficulties PRD Chongqing
Increased financial pressure 62% 61%
No time to educate my child 46% 54%
Worry my child will fall into bad company 26% 19%
I don’t know how to deal with my
relationship with my child effectively 15% 7%
Work pressure leaves me with practically
no time to myself 33% 36%
I don’t know how to help my child with
their studies 42% 25%
No difficulties 7% 11%
Reason for not having child/
children with them Parents of left-behind children Parents of left-behind children
in the PRD region
in the Chongqing region Children cannot take the college
entrance exam away from our
hometown 28% Living costs in the city too high 53% 52% indicated that they hoped they would be able to have closer contact with their
No time to take care of children 72% 59% children and give them better guidance during this period. However, as a result
Worried it will affect my work 18% 19% Environment at home is safer 15% 17% Problems with access to local
schools 33% 20%
26%
Both parents of left-behind children and migrant children said that they worried
about what would happen when their children reached adolescence. Both groups
of financial and social service limitations, parents said they usually decide to send
their adolescent children back to their hometowns to attend school.
“This year our oldest daughter is attending third grade of middle school,” says
Ou Haisheng, “We’re worried because the exam-scores required to get into
a high school in Zhuhai are quite steep. Back in our hometown they give you
The main differences between the parents of left-behind children in the PRD extra points if you’re from a household with only female offspring, so we sent
and those in Chongqing were that workers in the PRD were more likely to our daughter back to finish the third grade.
feel they had “no time” to look after their children and that the challenges of
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getting their children into schools near where they worked were overwhelming. But the financial pressure is still huge, and when we went back for Chinese
As has been noted above, the parents of left-behind children in Chongqing New Year, our daughter’s classmates were saying that she’d been going to
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