Effects of Migration on Families and the Left-Behind Children, Essay Example

Abstract

This paper is discusses the effects of migration on families and left-behind children. It further elucidates how families and children are affected negatively in the course of urban migration. Also, the positive effects of migration to families and children are likewise explained.

Effects of Migration on Families and the Left-Behind Children

Preliminary Thesis

Urban migration is one of the current economic trends in China. Individuals from various rural parts in China are migrating to the big cities to get a job and provide for their families back home. Although urban migration is not at par to the scale of international migration, the truth remains that its effects can be as critical as trying to make a living in the bigger cities in urban China. Urban migration in China is the direct result of poverty in rural areas. In order to provide for a family, parents are leaving their homes to find a better life in the city through employment as housekeepers, factory workers and even odd jobs. This situation may have provided for the needs of the family but it is also causing turmoil that can break up a once solid family.

Opening Example

Take for example what Loyalka wrote in her article entitled “Eating Bitterness” wherein Chinese parents are migrating to the cities in order to provide education for their children especially the eldest. The common thinking is that the separation is worth the life that they can provide to their children. With this in mind, the parents are forgetting the most important part of being a family and that is the concept of togetherness. Being together as a family, through thick and thin, is the core of a family. Unfortunately for some children, they do not have the choice to make their parents stay in their homes since there are mouths to feed and children to send to school. This is a sad reality of life in rural China. The goal of the parents is good in its own accord. There is nothing wrong with doing whatever it takes to make sure that the family will not suffer. However, the parents and the children are missing out on each other. The children do not have the parents to talk to about their problems or how their day went. The care and the supervision of parents are being missed by the children. Some children would even think that parents are just “providers”- the source of material possession and nothing more (Chan, 1994).

First Claim

However, Chinese parents who migrated to the big cities to earn a living oftentimes just take the opportunity to save up some money and establish their own life and then bring their children with them in the city. It is a family re-unification. Yet, it does not provide a stable environment for the children. As the parents work very hard and tirelessly, at the end of the day they do not have time for the children. Loyalka (2002) clearly described this situation by telling the story of Ming. When Ming went to live with her parents in the city, she could not understand the hype of the city and just wanted to retreat in her home in one of the rural areas in China. This is only an indication that even though the parents want something for their children, the latter might have something else in their mind. The children might not want the life that their parents are forming for them in the big city as they develop and grow into their own personality as shaped by the people around them and their environment. The parents do not have that kind of influence to the children due to the separation. They rely on the grandparents to take care and shape their children and hoping that they will grow to be ambitious and successful. But that is not the case. Most of the grandparents in rural areas do not have education. Hence, this situation is what molds the children in rural areas as proven by the apparent increasing rate of school drop outs.

The lack of proper supervision has caused the increasing rate of teenage pregnancy that will just start the cycle of another family whose parents have migrated to urban China to provide for the family. The cycle will never end because now, the once children have now become parents who have regretted their own decisions and in order to make up for it, they will leave their children behind to work hard and tirelessly in bigger cities so that their children will not make the same mistakes they committed. Now, they are the ones pushing for their children’s education and will choose to be separated from them to provide them the better future that slipped right before their very eyes.

Third Claim

But then again, it can be said that if there is one good that can come out from urban migration is the fact that the parents are trying to promote education and hard work to the children and setting good examples as hard as they could. They might have started wrong by moving but if there are only people who cares to the families, the children can see the sacrifices of their parents for what it’s worth- just to open the pathway to a better future for them. As a matter of fact, some migrant workers are able to buy houses for their families. The problem nowadays is that children who grew up in poverty are not being taught the importance of education. The parents are doing what they think is best and what they think will work but it is just not cutting it. The children do not see the hard work and the labor of the parents. They do not know how hard it is for their parents to leave. Hence, the government has to step up not just in trying to alleviate the poverty in rural areas but also in providing assistance to people who need it the most. There should also be applications of stricter regulations and laws concerning labor practices in order to ensure that migrant workers are protected and not exploited.

Third Claim

 In the end, it is undeniable that urban migration has more negative effects to the families and left-behind children than there are advantages. It greatly affects the solidarity of the family in a very negative manner. The separation of family is now becoming the norm in the rural areas and poverty is forcing and pushing parents to migrate in the hope that their children can be sent to schools and have a better life than they do (Lewis, 1954). This is a sad reality but if there is one lesson to be learned from this situation is that- good parents always think the best for their children. However, for some people it is hard and sometimes, it is worth asking if all the sacrifices justify the expected and hoped for outcome. Or is it better for the family to just stay and work together as one family for a better future. 

References

Chan, K. (1994). Cities with Invisible Walls: Reinterpreting Urbanization in Post-1949 China. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.

Lewis, W. (1954). Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labor. The Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, 22: 139-91.

Loyalka, M. (2012). Eating Bitterness: Stories from the Front Lines of China’s Great Urban Migration. London: University of California Press, Ltd.