A quarter of the population of Shanghai is about to leave town. Many have already gone. They are part of the world’s largest annual human migration, the trek that takes Chinese migrants back home for lunar new year — where many will see their children for the only time this year.
The rest of the year, while their parents are working their tails off in the big city, 70m “left-behind kids” stay at home — either with Grandma, or with just Mum or Dad; or they are at boarding school, often without any adult supervision.
These are the casualties of the Chinese dream: kids whose emotions, nutrition and even their very stature can be stunted by the absence of parents, who are forced to follow the work far away from home. Some end up pretty much as economic orphans: according to a recent report from the All-China Women’s Federation, 2m such kids are in effect homeless, living without familial love from one lunar new year to the next.