Introduction

BBC 2010

The current study of China’s floating population in many respects is the study of economic changes and social stratification as experienced by Chinese migrants from rural and township household registries in their journey’s to the alluring promise of urban living advantages in the new China.  As China’s reforms in marketization brought increased demands for able bodied workers in urban centers, the tide of rural and township migrants rose to meet these demands.  With these economic changes also came new perspectives of increased opportunities in burgeoning urban centers and economic zones for China’s previously stationary household and work unit bound population (Zhang, 2008).  The stories of against the odds success and intolerable social injustice are also equally present and relevant in the history of China’s floating population, making the sociological study of this topic a quite multifaceted undertaking.  On one hand there are studies highlighting the increased life partner and career opportunities for young Chinese females migrating from non-urban households to urban centers and the prized prowess of young Chinese men earning in the city to return to their rural household registries as enriched family providers (Zhang, 2008).  On the other side there are the issues of bigoted urban attitudes and violent actions towards migrant populations, urban police brutality towards non-registered migrants and housing and poverty issues perpetuated by lacking government action and legislation to address these inequalities (Nielsen, Nyland and Smyth, 2006).  Among all of these issues though, several key studies suggest that migrant Chinese families, particularly with regards to the educational and healthcare needs of their children, constitute one of the most highly disadvantaged and at risk segments of China’s floating population (Irwin 2000) (Ligao McGrath and Calin 2011) (Pumin 2010).