The story is as old as China's development surge. Migrant workers from the countryside move into the big cities to find work, but leave their children behind with grandparents or relatives.
The Deputy director of the China Youth Research Center, Sun Xiaoyun, gave her "solution" to the problem in a China Daily article: "If kids can go out [to the cities to work] with their parents together, many problems will disappear." I sit silent, dumbfounded by such lack of insight.
Of course! But stating generalized, unrealistic, shallow solutions is not going to do anything to actually solve the problem. Moving to understand these problems on a deeper level and come to much more workable conclusions does not take much work. At the very least, we should ask the right questions. Do these rural workers want to leave their children behind? Do they want to travel to some unknown area to toil for meagre wages in hopes of helping their family survive? If not, then why do they?
If they could bring their children with them, they would. Working in factories, on construction sites, and the many other low level jobs in the cities is not exactly easy. There obviously is no day care for children, except maybe the local pre-schools, which would require money they do not have. The workers are expected to work long hours for small pay, because if they do not, there are thousands of other migrant workers willing to do so.
So, back in the village sit grandpa and grandma only with enough energy to keep an eye on the children. Will these children receive the education they need? Maybe. Will they have the instruction they need to grow into mature adults? Again, maybe.
There is no way we can sit down, write out a one page article and solve one of the greatest issues China's society is facing today, but we can play our part. Let's ask some new questions, some emotionally lighter questions. Does the countryside have resources? Can those resources be developed? If so, can many of these migrant workers remain in their villages or local areas and work for companies and projects that are building on the trade resources already extant in the countryside?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
And those answers have everything to do with keeping parents and children together. Small businesses, large businesses, local factories, and government projects can all build a profitable business base in rural areas, and an extra benefit is workers that do not have to sacrifice their families to take part. Everybody wins.
The reason this continues is that those with the money right now would not win as big as they do in the current situation.
