How to reverse the inferiority of both rural migrants and their left-behind members?

Yinan LI, School of Management, Lanzhou University
Jinghong Zhang, Australian National University

It is relevent to do research on the issue of rural to urban migration in China in the context of economic transformation and social change. Accompanied by the rapid growth of rural to urban migrant population, their left-behind families are becoming another noteworthy issue. For the urban destination, rural migrants have devoted largely to urbanization and economic development, but they gradually become marginalized and cannot integrate into the urban society. Rural family members have been separated for ages, and except for remittances, they receive disadvantages from rural to urban migration. Even whole rural communities were left-behind. This dual inferior position is rooted from unequal rural to urban migration. It is reasonable for the migrants to return and work in agricultural or rural industrial sectors. Unbalanced rural to urban labour force migration should be transformed. With more investment the rural families can benefit when working and living together as well as separately.