This study aims to capture how left-behind children in China experience their life with their parents’ migration and how they exercise agency to negotiate with structural and cultural contexts when living under these circumstances. The fieldwork was conducted in a middle school in a rural region of the inland province Hunan, with the data mainly being obtained from in-depth interviews with 16 focal left-behind children. An integrative theoretical framework is proposed to explain the dynamic process of living with parents’ migration by explicating the interaction between structure, culture, and agency. The research findings indicate that the left-behind children’s experiences can be conceptualised as “ambivalence” in that they incorporate simultaneous existence of opposing emotions towards their parents’ migration. Such experiences are grounded in the structural and cultural contexts associated with migration on the one hand, and on the other, provide the driving impetus for children to reproduce and/or transform their structural and cultural contexts by adopting agentic strategies either more engaged with the present or more directed towards the future. An integrated theoretical framework has been developed to capture a dynamic understanding of left-behind children, wherein ambivalence is proposed to act as a bridging concept to link agency with structure and culture. This framework challenges the univalent orientations in conceptualising agency as rational choice or resistance and emphasises the mutual sustaining relationships between culture and structure, which could contribute to the debates in the sociology of childhood field by advancing theoretical integration so as to transcend the agency/structure dichotomy. By highlighting left-behind children’s ambivalent experiences, this research further contributes to the literature that challenges the image of passive victims attributed to them, and adds to the knowledge on how to address their needs as well as to facilitate their exercising of agency, which can inform related policy and service provision.

The overall aim of the thesis is to explore the negative life experience of left-behind children in a dynamic and integrated perspective taking left-behind children, their guardians, parents, school and other social communities into consideration. It explores the current situation of some left-behind children in China, and discusses the causes and negative effects on children‟s comprehensive development. A qualitative research method has been used because of the in-depth outcome accessible through face-to-face interview. Three left-behind children in different family compositions and one teacher were interviewed. The outcome of this study is discussed in multiple dimensions to explore consequences of left-behind children in China. The results suggest that parents’ migration can lead to more serious problems for the children than expected. The management of left-behind children requires concerted efforts from various social systems, not only parents, schools, children welfare center, and the whole nation, otherwise it would worsen deteriorated social issues.

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China’s rapid urbanization and mass migration over the past several decades has resulted in approximately 69 million children being left-behind in the countryside. Many of these children suffer from problems linked to a lack of parental care and emotional support, including physical and psychological abuse, neglect, truancy, and even malnutrition. In 2010, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs and UNICEF piloted a “child welfare director (CWD)” model in Chinese 120 hinterland villages aimed at empowering community members to fill the gaps in child welfare provision and to improve the well-being of disadvantaged children in rural areas. Since 2019 the Chinese government has strived to implement the CWD system across the country. Informed by a theoretical framework that encompasses the concepts of child development, family support, and child welfare models in China and Japan, this study investigates the implementation and further development of the CWD system. A comparative analysis of the Japanese commissioned welfare volunteer and chief child welfare volunteer system is also utilized to explore possible lessons for the Chinese circumstances. The research findings highlight the crucial coordination function of the CWD system in incorporating families, schools, government bureaus, and various social sectors into a synergetic network to connect fragmented child welfare resources and services to support disadvantaged children and families. Analysis of the Japanese approach sheds light on the further development of the CWD system in terms of consolidating the partnership between CWDs and schools, promoting the cooperation between CWDs and social welfare institutions, as well as strengthening the professionalism of CWDs. This research also examines the involvement of civil society in child welfare provision in contemporary China. For program planners and policymakers, this thesis emphasizes the central role of governments at various levels, along with the important though limited contributions of non-government sectors, in providing more financial, human, and training resources to support the implementation of the CWD system to enhance child welfare provision in rural China. A key recommendation arising from this research is to establish a new specially designated government department with responsibility for all relevant child welfare issues. The thesis also speaks to the wider issue of promoting rural revitalization and rural-urban integration to address the specific challenges of left-behind children in the Chinese countryside. / Graduate

Cette thèse comporte trois chapitres qui se rattachent aux relations entre les migrants et leur communauté d'origine sur le cas de la Chine et le Vietnam. Le premier chapitre étudie la relation entre les transferts de fonds envoyés par les migrants, et le niveau de confiance et de fiabilité des villageois vietnamiens qui en sont bénéficiaires. Voici les résultats principaux obtenus en combinant les données d’un terrain d’expérimentation de 2010 avec les données de VHLSS 2002 (2002 Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey). En ce qui concerne le niveau de confiance, cette étude montre que les transferts de fonds internationaux sont liés de manière positive au comportement de confiance de ceux qui les reçoivent. En ce qui concerne le niveau de fiabilité, l’étude trouve que les transferts de fonds internationaux ont un lien négatif avec le niveau de fiabilité de celui qui les reçoit tandis que les transferts de fonds internes ont un lien positif avec le niveau de fiabilité de celui qui les reçoit. Cette étude montre en outre que le niveau de fiabilité est plus élevé dans le sud que dans le nord de Vietnam. Le deuxième chapitre s'interroge sur l'impact des enfants lassés dans la communauté d’origine par les migrants sur leur décision de retour en Chine en utilisant une enquête ménage en milieu rural du district de Wuwei (dans la province de l’Anhui) en 2008. Un modèle de durée paramétrique à hasards proportionnels en temps discret et un modèle probit sont employés pour estimer séparément le rôle des enfants laissés au village par âge et par sexe sur la longueur des épisodes migratoires pour les migrants actuels et les migrants du retour, ainsi que pour les intentions de retour de migrants actuels. Cette étude souligne le rôle des enfants lassés derrières comme raison significative pour le retour des parents migrants. Le dernier chapitre étudie l’impact de l’expérience migratoire sur le choix d’être entrepreneur pour un migrant du retour après son retour dans sa communauté d’origine. En utilisant la même base de donnés chinoise, cette étude montre que les migrants du retour ont une tendance plus affirmée à devenir entrepreneurs que les non-migrants, et que l'épargne rapatriée par les migrants, comme la fréquence des changements d'emploi pendant l'épisode migratoire, exercent une influence positive sur la probabilité des migrants de devenir entrepreneurs après leur retour. / This dissertation is comprised of three chapters on the interaction between migrants and their source regions applied to China and Vietnam. The first chapter examines whether remittances are related to receivers’ trust and trustworthiness in Vietnam. Using a combination of a field experiment conducted in 2010 and the “2002 Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey”, the chapter finds that while internal remittances have no significant relationship to trusting behavior, international remittances demonstrate a significantly positive connection. On the other hand, international remittances are negatively related to trustworthiness, while internal remittances are positively associated. Besides, this study finds that the level of trustworthiness is higher in the south than in the north. The second chapter explores the role of children by age and by gender as a motive for return migration in China by using a rural household survey conducted in Wuwei County (Anhui province) in 2008. Resorting to a discrete time proportional hazard model and a binary Probit model to estimate respectively the determinants of migration duration for both on-going migrants and return migrants, and the return intentions of on-going migrants, the chapter finds consistent results regarding the role of left-behind children as a significant motive for return. The last chapter examines the impact of the migration experience on individuals’ choice of being self-employed upon their return to their home villages. By using the same data of Wuwei survey, the chapter finds that return migrants are more likely to be self-employed than non-migrants, and that both return savings and the frequency of job changes during migration increase the likelihood for return migrants to become self-employed.

This dissertation is comprised of three chapters on the interaction between migrants and their source regions applied to China and Vietnam. The first chapter examines whether remittances are related to receivers' trust and trustworthiness in Vietnam. Using a combination of a field experiment conducted in 2010 and the "2002 Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey", the chapter finds that while internal remittances have no significant relationship to trusting behavior, international remittances demonstrate a significantly positive connection. On the other hand, international remittances are negatively related to trustworthiness, while internal remittances are positively associated. Besides, this study finds that the level of trustworthiness is higher in the south than in the north. The second chapter explores the role of children by age and by gender as a motive for return migration in China by using a rural household survey conducted in Wuwei County (Anhui province) in 2008. Resorting to a discrete time proportional hazard model and a binary Probit model to estimate respectively the determinants of migration duration for both on-going migrants and return migrants, and the return intentions of on-going migrants, the chapter finds consistent results regarding the role of left-behind children as a significant motive for return. The last chapter examines the impact of the migration experience on individuals' choice of being self-employed upon their return to their home villages. By using the same data of Wuwei survey, the chapter finds that return migrants are more likely to be self-employed than non-migrants, and that both return savings and the frequency of job changes during migration increase the likelihood for return migrants to become self-employed.

Due to the increasing number of rural-to-urban migration of middle-aged labors, some of the migrants’ children were left behind in the rural areas with one parent, grandparents, siblings or other relatives, however, some others migrated to the urban areas with one or both parents. To the left-behind children and migrant children in school age, there are different barriers and facilitators in rural and urban areas for their academic performance. This study is a systematic review with the aim of describing the academic performance in China for left-behind children in rural areas and migrant children in urban areas between the ages of six to eighteen. This systematic review was conducted by using four databases with an inclusion and exclusion criteria designed in advance. Articles on left-behind and migrant children were searched separately. 97 articles on left-behind children and 184 on migrant children were identified at first. 6 articles on left-behind children and 19 on migrant children were identified after abstract and title screening. Eventually, 8 articles in total were included into this study after the full text screening process. The results showed that, there are a number of barriers for academic performance of left-behind children, for example, the poor quality of school and the absence of mother. And for migrant children, there are more facilitators for academic performance comparing to left-behind children, for instance, they are more likely to have adequate support from parents. The limitations, further researches and practical implementations were also discussed in this study.

This qualitative multiple-case study sought to provide an in-depth understanding of how children living in broken families-due to the wrongful conviction of parent(s)-developed psychosocial issues. The theoretical frameworks applied to this study were the social learning theory, the social control theory, the role-modeling theory, and the general theory of crime. A purposeful sample of 13 adults who were children at the time of their parents’ wrongful incarceration were drawn for phone and in-person interviews. The data were transcribed and analyzed to code, sort, and organize; to analyze connections in the information, and to compare and contrast cases. The multiple-case study data were analyzed using 1st and 2nd cycle coding. Among the 10 themes identified in this study were these 5: family structure and activities, behavioral issues associated with the wrongful conviction of their parents, wrongful conviction effects on education, mental health impacts of a parental wrongful conviction on left-behind children and bullying in school and at home. This implications for positive social change are that the findings raise awareness of the psychosocial issues experienced by children whose parent(s) were wrongfully imprisoned for government officials, community leaders, policymakers, and justice reform advocates who can use them to implement programs to provide psychosocial assistance to all children of incarcerated parents.