Parental migration, children and family reunification in China

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, we focus on migrant parents' decision to either bring children to the cities (family reunification) or leave them behind in China. We develop a framework to understand this decision, which takes into account child characteristics, characteristics of migrant parents and characteristics of migrant‐receiving communities. Our research design allows us to conduct comparison of rural‐origin children and urban‐origin children. The rural–urban differences are reflected in lowered probability of bringing children to cities, more hurdles for housing and access to public school education for rural migrant parents and their children. For rural‐origin school‐age children, gender inequality is persistent, that is, girls of school age are less likely to be brought to cities than boys. Finally, a piece of promising news is that migrant parents with more social interactions with local residents are more likely to bring children to destinations. The results suggest that years after China's official policy of ‘no extra fees’ for migrant children in urban public schools, migrant children, especially from rural areas, continue to face a variety of challenges in moving to cities and having access to local urban public schools.