The new left-behind phenomenon in rural populations deserves attention
Since the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization, the problem of left-behind rural populations has intensified day by day, and it is mainly concentrated on the vulnerable groups of left-behind children, left-behind women and left-behind elderly people.
But how many people are there in the "three left-behind" groups? Data from various sources differ. Taking left-behind children as an example, some say 58 million, some say 61 million, and some say fewer than 30 million.
On November 9, 2016, some media learned from the second plenary meeting of the inter-ministerial joint conference on the care and protection of rural left-behind children held by the Ministry of Civil Affairs that "the latest nationwide survey results show that the total number of rural left-behind children in China is currently 9.02 million." From tens of millions to a cliff-like sharp drop to merely 9.02 million, a different "definition" is an important reason, but it is also an indisputable fact that the rural left-behind population is undergoing new changes. From my grassroots research, several kinds of "new left-behind" phenomena in the rural population have emerged and deserve attention.
The first is the reverse left-behind of rural populations in cities. That is, the elderly and children have moved into the county seat, enjoying elderly care and better education in the city, but the children's parents are not in the county seat. They may still be engaged in related industries in the countryside, or have gone elsewhere to work, with the result that the elderly and children are still in a left-behind state in the city. But this situation is already much better than being left behind in the countryside, at least because conditions have improved.
The second is the solitary left-behind state of men in the countryside. In my research, I found that because many village officials now have homes in the city, but according to regulations must be on duty at the village office, even lunch requires them to cook for themselves, which was absolutely unimaginable in the past. If this kind of left-behind state is still temporary, then the large number of bachelors in the countryside is a miserable form of being left behind: over 40 years old, no wife, and even less likely to have children, with no prospects in career and no hope in life, many idle about and few make a normal living. This is also a group that gives people headaches in poverty alleviation. There is also another category: those who send the elderly, wives and children into the city, while the man who heads the household still struggles in the countryside, for example by running a farm, engaging in breeding, opening a shop, doing processing, or organizing a construction and decoration team. As a result, rural life and work are completely reversed: the countryside becomes the place to work, while life requires returning to the city, and the urban-rural relationship is completely reversed. Even in some Taobao villages, there are similar situations, namely buying a house in the city and living in the city.
The third is the new left-behind state of rural women in cities. A group of women take their children into the city to attend school, while their men work in other cities. Although they have entered the city, they have not achieved family reunion. They often rent a place in the county seat, with one person caring for two or three young children, until the children pass the school entrance examination. So what should this group of women be called? For now, let us call them "accompanying-study mothers," because they are not full-time housewives in the city, still less do they have that kind of economic foundation, and life in the city is relatively poor and difficult. Most of their income comes from the men working away from home, and another part comes from the family business income of the elderly in the countryside. The living state of such a group is also lonely and gloomy, and it is even prone to creating family estrangement.
The fourth is the solitary left-behind state of the elderly, especially widowed and widower elderly people. The traditional threefold left-behind pattern of women, children and the elderly in the countryside is now shifting toward the solitary left-behind state of the elderly, because of reasons such as village consolidation and school mergers in rural areas and parents pursuing better teaching quality. Large numbers of rural children go into the city to study, and generally the mother accompanies them into the city, leaving only the elderly at home to take care of the farmland. If both husband and wife are still alive, it is still relatively better; if one has already passed away, the remaining elderly person is even lonelier. For example, in northern Shaanxi there are some villages with fewer than 10 people, just waiting for the last elderly person to pass away, after which the village will forever disappear from history.
The new situations shown by the current flow of rural population, especially the new characteristics shown by the left-behind rural population, fully demonstrate that the process of urban-rural integration still has a long way to go. In particular, the integration of public services is a weak link that urgently needs strengthening; otherwise, the new countryside may still be unable to retain people.