From left-behind children to young migrants: the intergenerational social reproduction of rural migrant labor in China

ABSTRACT

Growing in number in the last two decades, rural migrant workers in China have completed intergenerational replacement, and young migrants have become a principal part of the migrant population. However, the process of such intergenerational reproduction has not been thoroughly examined. Based on field studies in the Chinese countryside, this paper analyzes the mechanisms of intergenerational reproduction of rural migrants from the perspective of rural communities, families, and school education. “Left-behind” rural communities, their migration-oriented social culture, and the cognition of rural–urban differences as constructed through migrant parents facilitated a subjective willingness for migration among left-behind children. Exclusion from urban-biased rural education is often the final external thrust for their migration. Having finished the transition, the households of a new young generation of rural migrants are experiencing a different crisis of reproduction. This paper argues that there is a systematic rupture between labor, households, and rural society and that this presents a critical development trap for China.

KEYWORDS:

• Left-behind children
• rural migrant worker
• intergenerational replacement
• social reproduction

Acknowledgments

The author thanks her colleagues from College of Humanities and Development Studies in China Agricultural University who participated in the fieldwork and shared their insights with great generosity. She also thanks the reviewers and editors for their comments and hard work to facilitate publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The names of villages and persons are pseudonyms for ethical considerations.

2. According to Bourdieu (1993), symbolic violence is a form of violence operating symbolically upon a social agent with his or her complicity.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the research project “The Role Transition for Left-behind Children Who Dropped out Compulsory Education” (project No. 14BSH132) of the National Social Sciences Fund of China.