Old Version
China is home to an estimated 61 million left-behind children whose parents have left home to seek work elsewhere in the country. The children are mainly in the care of their grandparents and although their basic physical needs are met, their psychological needs are largely neglected. According to statistics from the Rural Education Action Program released by Peking University and Stanford University in April, 2016, 24.5 percent of caretakers of infants and small children in rural areas have a tendency to suffer from depression, including 1.8 percent who have severe depression. The heavy work, poor conditions as well as the lack of emotional support lead to the prevalence of depression. Experts warned that while China’s urbanization boom has lasted for more than 30 years, the binary structure of urban and rural areas remains the same, forcing many migrant workers to abandon their offspring in rural areas because when they reach urban areas they face rising housing prices and a shortage of educational resources and medical care.
