Bringing children to the cities: gendered migrant parenting and the family dynamics of rural-urban migrants in China

Abstract

ABSTRACTIncreased family migration over the past few decades has given rise to a prominent issue: how migrant parents raise their children in a destination society. The literature on migrant parenting has primarily focused on the transnational/translocal parenting of left-behind children. However, despite the increasing number of migrant children, relatively less attention has been paid to the intrafamilial dynamics and gendered parenting of raising children in a destination society. To fill the gap, this study records the voices of both rural-urban migrant mothers and fathers with children who reside in urban South China to examine how gendered parenting is negotiated between migrant couples and across migrant generations. The findings of this study enrich the body of scholarship by demonstrating the constantly negotiated and contested nature of gender in migrant parenting and the hybrid effects of family migration on the gendered labour division of child care for different caregivers.