The Living Condition
Let me sleep beside you. Let me touch your face. Let me have a sweet dream beside you..
--A letter to mum
Guardianship
Left-behind children are commonly looked after by the remaining parent, grandparents, other relatives or others. Each kind of guardianship type accounts for the proportion to be as follows:
Types of LBC’s Guardianship |
|||||
Types |
One of parent |
Grandparents |
Other relative |
Others |
Total |
47.14% |
25.56% |
15.72% |
11.58% |
100% |
|
Above data displayed, more than 50% of the LBC live with neither mother nor father. The type of others includes same generation guardianship and about 2% to 3% percent of LBC have to live alone.
Education
Research shows, there aren’t many differences between left-behind children and other Chinese rural children in their educational circumstance. The following table lists the data.
Educating Circumstance between LBC and Other Rural Children |
||||||
|
At school |
Never been to school |
Graduated |
Dropped out school |
Others |
Total |
LBC |
92.01% |
1.82% |
5.54% |
0.61% |
0.02% |
100% |
others |
88.52% |
1.99% |
8.62% |
0.81% |
0.06% |
100% |
The basic education opportunity of LBC provides the safeguard during the compulsory education stage especially at primary school. But the conditions get worse at junior school level and beyond.
Employment
According to the survey, about one third of left-behind children from the age of 15 to 17 starts to work once graduated from junior school. 83.15% of them remain on the farm with a few of them having their own business.
Sources:
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_48945482010007hd.html
Click to see a video of their daily life (With a background music from "Banderi"):
