Inequality and Rural Discrimination: Causes of the Rural-Urban Literacy Gap for Children in China

Image credit: Pathway to Home, by Xiaohan

KUNTIAN CHEN

Read the Faculty Introduction.

Around 5 years ago, Chinese scholar Qian Liu examined the “social integration status” of migrant workers’ children in urban public schools, attempting to understand whether migrant workers’ children were accepted as part of the urban communities they were living in (395). According to an entry in his field diary, a teacher from an urban primary school told him: “… since the parents (migrant workers) aren’t well mannered, it is hard for us to manage them, and the parents don’t understand what we are saying” (398). The quote displays a negative view of migrant workers and their children, where they are viewed as illiterate and bad-mannered in the urban spaces that they live and study in.

In this essay, I define migrant workers (‘农民工’ in Mandarin) as  people who grew up in rural areas, and moved to urban areas for work in China. Migrant workers are commonly considered as a group ‘in-between’ urban and rural residents in China, in that they grew up in rural areas but are now working and living in cities. By the term ‘urban residents’, I refer to Chinese nationals who are born and have lived continuously in cities in China, as contrasted against rural residents, who are born and live in rural areas. 

With urban residents and migrant workers now living together in closer proximity, migrant workers are often blamed for their children’s lack of literacy skills, and perceived as lacking in their own sense of personal responsibility for their children. This is evident in surveys conducted in four major cities by the Chinese sociologist Li Zhu, who noted the presence of strong negative reactions against migrant laborers in urban populations (48). Such negative reactions include instances where migrant workers, their children, and larger rural populations are considered as illiterate and lacking any ability or potential to become literate (48). Read together with Qian’s field research, Li’s surveys illustrate how negative attitudes about the literacy of migrant workers and their children are common among urban residents. However, I argue that such negative attitudes against migrant workers are unreasonable. Lower literacy skills in migrant workers’ children are due to long working hours imposed upon their parents, where their parents are unable to provide adequate informal literacy activities to support their children’s education. Rather than seeing migrant workers’ children as incapable of becoming literate, and their parents as irresponsible, we should see migrant workers and their children as victims of a cycle of low income and inadequate education, and inherently capable of achieving stronger literacy skills, instead of placing the blame of lower literacy skills on them. 

Some children of migrant workers have relatively weaker literacy skills because their parents move into the cities to find better jobs, leaving them unattended and lacking in informal literacy activities. These children are commonly referred to as ‘left-behind children’ in China, whose parents migrate from rural areas into the cities for better jobs, but leave their children behind in these rural areas. In their study on the effects of family involvement on the development of literacy skills, Jingying Wang, Hui Li, and Dan Wang have defined daily activities between parents and children which help children practice their language as “informal literacy activities,” which complement the “formal” literacy activities offered by public schools (119). Moreover, according to their research, these activities play a vital role in the development of children’s literacy skills, where the presence of such informal literacy activities are linked to better academic performance in primary school children (130). 

However, children of migrant workers have fewer chances to meet and interact with their parents, and would thus lack the opportunity to have such essential informal literacy activities. In a study by labor scholars Guanglun Michael Mu and Yang Hu, both authors highlight the living conditions of ‘left-behind’ children by conducting interviews with them. One of these children said: 

At the New Year Party, all other kids had their parents around, but my parents were busy at work… When the show started, all the other kids were lifted above by their parents… so they could still see what’s going on out there… At that time, I just want my parents to be with me. 

(25)

This excerpt highlights how these children are affected by their parents being “busy at work,” who cannot spend time with their children even on New Year’s Eve. Given this geographical separation and the lack of time with their children, migrant workers have generally fewer opportunities for interaction and activities with their children, as compared with urban residents. Given such circumstances, it is understandable that these children would face greater challenges developing stronger literacy skills, as compared with urban residents.

Some children of migrant workers do move and live together with their parents in urban areas. While such children would live in closer proximity to migrant workers, they still face limited opportunities in strengthening their literacy skills — not due to any irresponsibility on the part of their parents, but due to the economic hardships and labor conditions they face. Most migrant workers have to work fairly long hours, leaving them with less time to spend with their children, as highlighted in a report by Hong Kong labor scholar Kaston Siu. Siu spent several months living with migrant workers to observe their living and working conditions. He writes that a typical factory migrant worker in Shenzhen needs to work 9 to 10 hours a day, but this can go up to 14 hours a day in the rush season (55). In contrast, according to the China Labor Statistical Yearbook, the average weekly working hours of urban employees is 46.2 hours in 2018 (“Survey of Average Weekly Working Hours”). Though urban employees also work quite long hours, migrant workers still work longer hours on a more consistent basis than urban residents. Furthermore, as most of them work in factories and other industrial areas, these workers are faced with more rigid working conditions and hours, leaving them with less time to spend with their children as compared with urban residents. Under such difficult economic and labor arrangements imposed upon them, migrant workers face considerable challenges in helping their children to develop stronger literacy skills.

We have discussed how migrant workers’ children have poorer literacy skills than the children of urban residents, due to lack of informal literacy activities and the economic conditions faced by their parents, instead of some born inferiority. With this understanding, we might wonder: how might these children perform, if they have the same material conditions and educational opportunities as their urban counterparts? Under the same conditions, it is likely that migrant workers’ children will display a similar level of literacy skills and academic performance as the children of urban residents. This is supported by a study by Gerard A. Postiglione and several Chinese scholars, who randomly sampled the academic scores of students from urban and rural areas who were admitted to top Chinese universities. When comparing the scores of these two groups of students, the authors found out that the average Grade Point Average (GPA) of urban students is 77.75 out of 100, while the average GPA of rural students is 76.74 out of 100 (68). Though urban students have a slightly better academic performance, this difference is, in the researchers’ own words, “not statistically significant” and can almost be ignored (71). Since the children of migrant workers are born in rural areas, they are more likely to take college entrance examinations in their hometown, and so may be considered as a part of the group of “rural students” examined by the authors. These scores highlight how there is no inherent inferiority in the children of migrant workers; if given more opportunities to receive a better education, these children have the potential to develop strong literacy skills, and to achieve academic success as well.

 In light of this study, we should reconsider the common negative perceptions of the children of migrant workers. Rather than adopting a view of them as inferior by their own or their parents’ faults, we should see such children as possessing great and equal potential for academic success. Furthermore, we ought to see the children of migrant workers as victims of a cycle of low income and weak literacy skills. In light of their parents’ lower income levels, the children of migrant workers are less likely to get high-income jobs because of their weaker literacy skills, thus perpetuating and transmitting lower income levels into future generations. Many studies have been done on the intergenerational transmission of poverty in China, but most focus on the specific conditions faced by poorer rural residents of being unable to work while not fully accounting for the specific challenges faced by migrant workers and their children (Zhang 56). For instance, migrant workers’ children can attend the same public schools as their urban counterparts, but still face a greater difficulty in achieving academic success under the economic and social challenges faced by their parents. 

Consequently, migrant workers’ children continue to face the effects of intergenerational poverty. In their study, Fangwei Wu, Deyuan Zhang, and Jinghua Zhang used mathematical models to explore the relationship between inadequate education and low income. Their study highlights that families with the same initial income level but different educational backgrounds may have differing economic outcomes, forming an income gap after some time (314). Moreover, if a family begins with a lower educational background and with poorer economic conditions, the income gap grows in severity, as time progresses (314). This model applies to the migrant workers’ children, as their weaker literacy skills makes it more challenging for them to achieve academic success and gain access to higher paying occupations and positions. While the children of migrant workers may possibly attain marginally higher income levels in the future, they will remain as victims of a more severe income gap, thus transmitting poor economic outcomes into future generations. The model therefore demonstrates the effects of lower literacy levels among the children of migrant workers, painting a more complete picture of the vicious cycle of poverty and poor educational outcomes faced by this population. 

    In this essay, I have explored how poorer literacy skills in migrant workers’ children are not due to the personal irresponsibility of their parents or family members, but due to economic and labor conditions — such as the parents’ movement away from home and longer working hours, which prevent them from playing a more active role in supporting the development of literacy skills in their children. Understanding the causes of lower literacy skills in these children helps us to see migrant workers as victims of the unbalanced economic development of rural and urban areas, and as victims of cycles of low income and inadequate education. As ordinary citizens, we may not have the ability to solve this complex problem comprehensively, but understanding the causes of the literacy gap helps us to show respect to migrant workers and their children that we meet in daily life. While policymakers have made great efforts to ensure the minimal income of migrant workers, more attention should also be paid towards protecting their rights and improving their working conditions, while also investing more in schools and educational programs for left-behind children. Such investments would improve the well-being and literacy skills of migrant workers’ children, and may eventually free them from the vicious cycle of low income and inadequate education. 

Works Cited

Gerard A., Postiglione, et al. “Rural Students in a Chinese Top-Tier University: Family Background, School Effects, and Academic Performance.” Chinese Education and Society, vol. 50, no. 2, 2017, pp. 63–74, doi:10.1080/10611932.2017.1326774. 

Li, Jie and Nikolas Rose. “Urban Social Exclusion and Mental Health of China’s Rural-Urban Migrants – A Review and Call for Research.” Health & Place, vol. 48, 2017, pp. 20–30, doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2017.08.009.

Li, Nan. “The Left-behind and Migrant Children of China: 2017 Statistics.” Translated by Luxia Broadbent, China Development Brief, 2018, www.chinadevelopmentbrief.cn/news/the-left-behind-and-migrant-children-of-china-2017-statistics-full-translation/

Mu, Guanglun Michael, and Yang Hu. “The Wellbeing of Floating Children and Left-Behind Children.” Living with Vulnerabilities and Opportunities in a Migration Context: Floating Children and Left-behind Children in China, Sense Publishers, 2016, pp. 25–46. 

Qian, Liu. “Three Types of Social Integration Status among Children of Migrant Workers in China: Scenes of Superiority of City Residents, Co-Existence of Urban Culture and Rural Hometown Culture, and Weak Social Capital under Strong Policy Discourse.” Chinese Education & Society, vol. 50, no. 4, 2017, pp. 393–408, doi:10.1080/10611932.2017.1382132.

Siu, Kaxton. “Continuity and Change in the Everyday Lives of Chinese Migrant Factory Workers.” The China Journal, vol. 74, 2015, pp. 43–65. 

“Survey of Average Weekly Working Hours of Employees in Cities and Towns”, People’s Republic of China, National Bureau of Statistics of China.  China Labour Statistical Yearbook 2018, China Statistics Press, 2019.

Wang, Jingying, et al. “Bridging the Rural-Urban Literacy Gap in China: A Mediation Analysis of Family Effects.” Journal of Research in Childhood Education, vol. 32, no. 1, 2017, pp. 119–134, doi: 10.1080/02568543.2017.1388308. 

Wu, Fangwei, et al. “Unequal Education, Poverty and Low Growth—A Theoretical Framework for Rural Education of China.” Economics of Education Review, vol. 27, no. 3, 2008, pp. 308–318, doi: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2006.09.008. 

Zhang, Huafeng. “The Poverty Trap of Education: Education–Poverty Connections in Western China.” International Journal of Educational Development, vol. 38, 2014, pp. 47–58, doi: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2014.05.003. 

Zhu, Li. “Quntixing Pianjian Yu Qishi-Nongmingong Yu Shimin De Mocaxing Hudong [Group Prejudice and Discrimination-Grinding Interaction between Peasant Worker and City Residents].” Jianghai Academic Journal, 2001, pp. 48–53.