China's left-behind children.

• Author: Ross, Brooke
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

A booming economy is tearing millions of workers away from their families. What can be done to help a generation of kids growing up without their parents?

Deep in rural western China, Yuwen Tang, 12, shares a one-room shack with his grandmother, younger brother, and two cousins. There isn't much privacy; they bathe in a metal tub on the floor and share a toilet with neighbors. Yuwen is constantly surrounded by people--except for the two he misses most: his mom and dad.

Yuwen's parents live in the city of Chengdu, several hours away from Yuwen's home in Sichuan province. There, they work in a textile factory, churning out the kinds of products that have helped transform China's economy into the second largest in the world (after the U.S.). Still, they're barely scraping by, and Yuwen sees them only two or three times a year.

"I know it is hard for Mom and Dad to earn money," he recently told the BBC. "But I miss them so much. It's very painful."

In Guizhou province, Gu Guangfeng has been taking care of her 15-year-old grandson and his younger sister for more than a decade. Gu's son left his home village in search of work when the boy was just 2 years old, and has never returned. Their mother has since remarried.

"We can only tell the children the truth, that their parents have left," Gu recently told The Statesman, an Indian newspaper.

These children are part of what's known as China's "left-behind generation." They live in rural areas while one or more of their parents live and work in China's cities--often the only place to find jobs. According to rough estimates, there are about 61 million left-behind children in China--one-fifth of all kids in the country.

From the Villages to the Cities

Although children face serious risks growing up without their parents, including abuse and depression, many Chinese feel they have no choice but to leave their kids behind. Why? Doing so allows their children to stay in school. While rural migrants are free to work in China's flourishing cities, they and their families aren't allowed to access government services there. That includes public schools and health care.

"Left-behind children are one of China's bestkept secrets," says Kam Wing Chan, a geography professor at the University of Washington and an expert on Chinese migration. "It's a very big issue that needs to be better known."

Recently, advocates for left-behind children have begun working to bring attention to the issue, prompting calls for China to end the policies that keep migrant families apart. How the government decides to act could have a huge impact--not just on the millions of left-behind kids, but also on the Chinese economy that this generation will one day have to sustain.

About half of China's left-behind children live with one parent while the other is away working. Another 44 percent are like Yuwen: left in the care of family members, usually grandparents, so both parents can work. And 3 percent--that's 2 million kids--live by themselves with no relatives to rely on at all.

The phenomenon of left-behind children is a by-product of the largest human migration in history. In recent decades, about 270 million Chinese have left their villages in the mostly rural provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou, and other remote areas to take jobs in China's cities.

Once poor and isolated under a repressive government, China has transformed itself into an economic giant in recent decades. In 1978, the Communist nation's leaders adopted reforms that loosened governmental control of the economy. Thanks to these changes, other nations rushed to do business with China. Technology firms and clothing manufacturers took advantage of the nation's skilled, low-paid workforce, and today China makes everything from jeans to iPhones.

Many migrants jump at the chance to work 12-hour days in China's factories manufacturing such products. The...