Growing Up with Distant Parents: Socialization and Alienation of “Left-Behind” Children in Rural China

Abstract

An increasing number of left-behind children has emerged in rural China as a result of the large-scale migration of rural farmers to urban cities since the 1990s. With the absence of parent(s) from the family, the left-behind children face crises in socialization and their relationships with their parents are threatened by physical distance. This paper investigates how Chinese left-behind children negotiate the missing roles of parents and how the parent-child relations in such families change over time, through in-depth case studies of two left-behind children with different family backgrounds in rural Henan province.