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Migrant Girls in Shenzhen: Gender, Education and the Urbanization of Aspiration*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2015

Charlotte Goodburn
Charlotte Goodburn*
Affiliation:
Lau China Institute, King's College London, London. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

This paper examines the impact of rural–urban migration on primary school-age migrant girls in China, providing important data on this unexplored group as well as drawing several larger conclusions about the evolving relationship between migration and women's autonomy. Much recent literature has focused on Chinese young unmarried women migrants. However, there has been no attempt to distinguish the effect of migration on children by gender, and little research on the “new generation” of married women migrants. This paper focuses on two aspects of migrant girls' well-being, education and migration satisfaction, and compares girls' assessments with those of their parents, particularly their mothers. It analyses differences between the views of both girls and parents, arguing that specific parental concerns about daughters shape girls' futures in ways that do not apply to migrant boys. A further, broader, implication of this analysis is that certain benefits of migration, previously thought to apply exclusively to single women, extend also to married women, influencing mothers when forming goals for their daughters' futures.

摘要

本文探讨中国农民工从农村移居城市务工对小学学龄女童的影响, 本文依据所收集的有关该群体的数据, 试图解释移居城市和妇女自主权之间的关系演变。目前, 大部分研究文献都专注于未婚的年轻女性农民工, 然而迄今为止, 有关城市移民对儿童在性别上的影响的研究, 及对 “新一代” 已婚的女性农民工的影响的研究, 却仍是无人涉足。本文着重在教育和移民满意度两个方面对农民工女性子女福祉进行研究, 并将这些女性子女和他们的父母, 特别是他们的母亲作比较。本文亦分析了这些女性子女和他们的父母对待问题的不同看法, 强调父母在对待女孩与对待男孩的态度上的不同; 在对待女孩问题上, 对某些问题的特别关注是影响其女性子女的主要因素。广言之, 本研究说明以前认为移居城市给单身女性带来的益处, 也适用于已婚女性, 并影响着母亲在为他们的女儿选择未来发展目标。

Keywords

migrant childrengendermigrant girlseducationwell-beingChina农民工子女性别问题农民工女童教育福利中国
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 222 , June 2015 , pp. 320 - 338
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Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2015 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful for the valuable feedback given by Stephen John and the comments and suggestions of the anonymous reviewers.

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