Across China, the number is estimated to be 9.97 million such offspring. In China's rural areas, around 58 million children remain in their hometown, separated from their migrant parents. The sixth population census shows 220 million people in today's China make a living outside their place where their residence hukou is registered, and middle-aged as well as young people make up a considerable proportion. If and when these migrants marry and start a family, their children, the so-called "the second floating generation" must make the choice to either remain where they are registered or follow their parents to pursue their lives in another city.
However, families who remain together in cities inevitably face the same kind of dilemma when the children reach the third grade of junior high school: they can return home for the senior high school examination which guarantees their right to participate in the future college entrance examination, or continue to study in the parent's working city but are then denied student status in their hometown.
If the children return alone, the family has to suffer the pain of a long separation, and children left alone in their hometown are already becoming a social concern. On the other hand, if the family returns together, the parents revisit the problem of how to make a living.
Counting on the middle class to safeguard rights
Seen from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, the middle class has the ability as well as the strongest motivation to safeguard the education rights of the whole 220 million floating population. Low-income migrant workers have to leave their children at home, while the wealthier classes send their children abroad for a better education.
Evidence that Beijing' increasingly prosperous migrants were prepared to fight for, and safeguard their rights, emerged in 2005 when the internet was much less developed. At that time parents began to file lawsuits and visit government departments, but they struggled as individuals.
In recent years, actions have become collective. They call themselves the volunteers for promoting education equity, and manage their own website devoted to the cause.
The volunteers' routinely circulate petitions on the street or online, and submit regular written appeals to local and national education departments on the last Thursday of every month. To date, the public has rewarded their work with 51,000 signatures that back up the 16 appeal documents detailing their suggestions to the ministry of education.
