They are also Parents They Are Also Parents - A Study on Migrant Workers | Page 6

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
also go out to the international brands and their value chain, who provided
Executive Summary
access to their factories – without their support this research would not have
been possible.
The aim of this report was to highlight the issue of China’s 61 million left-
The CSR Centre at the Embassy of Sweden has supported the completion of behind children from the perspective of their working parents. While the
this study. The Centre’s mission is to promote awareness and implementation profound impact of long-term family separation on children’s education,
of CSR in China, which also includes the worker’s conditions. emotional wellbeing and long-term development is increasingly well
documented, no study in the past has described the challenge this poses
Finally, thank you to all team members of CCR CSR, who worked to assure to working parents, and the impact of strained relationships on their work,
that we can complete and launch this unique study on China’s working wellbeing, and career decision-making.
parents.
From a business perspective, family issues are rarely factored into workforce
stability, production efficiency or the final profit margins. However, as this
report will show, the impact of family wellbeing on operations is critical, and
the challenges and needs of working parents should be at the core of any
company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy.
Sanna Johnson
Executive Director, CCR CSR
The research was carried out over June and July 2013, with our team
interviewing over 1,500 migrant workers in nine factories located in the
Pearl River Delta (PRD) and Chongqing. In addition 25 company and brand
managers responsible for Human Resources (HR) and CSR practice provided
input and their experience. Some of the main research findings were as
follows:
• While children and the family are at the very center of working parents’
needs, hopes and plans, there was a major discrepancy between the
migrant workers’ understanding of their responsibilities as parents and their
actual ability to take on these responsibilities.
• Financial pressure, lack of sufficient time to attend to children, and problems
with access to schooling meant that often the parents lacked the means
to keep their children with them. At the same time there were often no
suitable guardians back home to attend to the children.
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